Toaru Majutsu no Taylor-chan: A Certain Mythic Archmage
by Shadow Crystal Mage
Summary: NOT an Index Crossover! Taylor triggers as a phenomenally cosmic powered not-linear-but-quadratic reality-warping Eidolon Package, intent on being a hero. Really, a hero. No, not an arsonist, a hero! Look, that city block had no business being there! I'll have it back up by tomorrow, okay?-! (Pathfinder Crossover-ish?)
1. Character Creation!

A/N: Repeating, this is not a crossover with the series about the egotistical, self-centered prick with the anti-magic punch. Someone just use a gun on him already!

….

Toaru Majutsu no Taylor-chan: A Certain Mythic Archmage

by Shadow Crystal Mage

Chapter 1: Character Creation!

Disclaimer: Worm created by Wildbow. Pathfinder by Paizo.

….

 _ **Determine Your Ability Scores! Pick Your Class!**_

It was a perfectly ordinary mid-January night in Brockton Bay. The moon was shining, the drunks were singing, evil was flourishing as good people did nothing, thieves thieved, hussies hustled, druggies drugged, and one of the boats in the Boat Graveyard was loudly crushed to destruction as chunks of glowing hot volcanic rock and clumps of ash pounded down on the rusting metal, the hot slag falling from the air and showering violently on anything in an area 40 feet wide followed by heavy volcanic ash that reeked of sulfur, like the particularly cinematic result of a volcanic explosion.

The fact that Brockton Bay did not _have_ a volcano is at best a minor bit of useless trivia.

This persisted for precisely two minutes before cutting off, leaving behind a sinking ship that was slightly steaming as molted rock and metal sank beneath the cold waters of the Atlantic. It would have sunk sooner but some person had turned all the water around the ship, an area about 80 feet wide, into ice. This had also flash-frozen the ship, which had then cracked apart from the thermal shock of the two temperature extremes. The sound had echoed out over the water, a sudden crack that could not have been mistaken for anything but something big breaking.

Well before the ship had sunk completely, the guilty party had decided to cut her loses and stage an expeditious retreat, running for home. There was no one to see, and nothing _to_ see if there was anyone, but they definitely ran for home. You could hear the sounds of their hurried footsteps, seemingly moving much faster than the rhythm would indicate. Then even that was abruptly gone, as if someone sheepishly remembered they didn't need to do this 'running' thing.

Then there was only the lingering odor of sulfur, and lots of people wondering what the fuck had just happened.

….

It was a perfectly ordinary suburban home of a perfectly ordinary introverted teenager. Admittedly, it might have been in slightly better condition than it used to be, perhaps a tad cleaner, without any dust and lint in those hard to reach areas that are out of sight and out of mind, with much of materials in a state that could charitably be called 'well-worn'. Moonlight filtered in through the closed window, keeping out the chill and everything else, securely locked. The door was likewise sealed, locked from the inside. The walls, though plain and wooden, were obviously secure, the floor planks tightly nailed down, the ceiling whole and without trapdoors, loose panels or shoddy construction to provide egress or entrance. Any locked room mystery would have been proud to have a murder happen within the room's confines.

Said locked room mystery would have called shenanigans at the figure who suddenly appeared as if from thin air.

The figure, predictably, was a perfectly ordinary Taylor, of the sort to be found anywhere. Clad in perfectly ordinary jeans and perfectly ordinary hoodie, she was panting in a perfectly ordinary way like someone who had been running quickly to try and cut her loses in an expeditious retreat before remembering they didn't need to do this 'running' thing. Sitting down hard on her perfectly ordinary bed (okay, we'll stop now), she allowed herself to calm down and get her breathing in order.

That… had been bigger than she expected. Much bigger.

She imagined she could still smell the reek of sulfur, the echo of twisted metal cracking from extremes of heat and cold.

This power of hers needed a user's manual. Sure, she kinda knew what her powers were, but the knowledge had been insufficient to describe the reality. She was glad she'd decided not to try _that_ at home. It seemed a LONG way from the small telekinesis she'd started with to what was, basically, the fallout of a localized volcanic eruption (conveniently without a volcano) and an equally localized ice age.

Sighing, she looked across the room towards her desk at a pen and notebook lying there and casually pointed. The pen was picked up and flew towards her. She repeated the gesture and the notebook followed. She began to list down the results of her experiment.

When she'd first discovered she had powers, she thought that had been the end of it. Point at something and she could telekinetically move it around with her mind. It worked on only one thing at a time as long as it wasn't too heavy or too far away (five pounds and 80 feet away seemed to be the limit, otherwise it dropped), she couldn't move the object very fast, and as to control, it was only as precise as if she were manhandling the thing one-handed.

That hadn't explained the phantom sensations in her head, but it had certainly made operating the old TV in the hospital convenient.

But as powers went, it hadn't really been all that impressive.

Then she'd accidentally turned herself invisible during a depression spiral while she lay in bed after being released from the hospital. It was then that she considered the possibility maybe she had more than the ability to turn on a TV from across the room without a remote.

It was only when she and her dad ate on Sunday did she realized she literally hadn't eaten or drank anything the whole week and hadn't felt hungry or thirsty. And that was when she'd asked the very important question to herself, _what the heck are my powers?_

The knowledge had come to her as if some cosmic being had put together an itemized listing of her capabilities, formatted in an organized sheet that neatly grouped together all the changes to the disparate parts of her in their own separate categories. She even knew the exact power that had given her this knowledge, a kind of flash of omniscience that had quantified the phantom sensations in her head, the things she had unknowingly done that had made herself invisible for a short time, the until-now-unnoticed subtle physical changes to her body, and had collated that into something that would make sense to her. Then it had helpfully put mental labels on the parts that she hadn't tried yet, as if intellectual curiosity incarnate wanted her to poke those powers and see what happened.

Tonight had been the last test, because her 'list' had implied it was the kind of test that she wouldn't be able to keep secret at home like when she practiced throwing things and making them appear back in her hand (13 times a day, and she was now lethally good at throwing things) or flying (with only flying in space still untested, because what if she got lost?).

She expended another flash of omniscience and confirmed her supposition. The ten escalating tiers of powers within her grew exponentially, not linearly. The volcanic storm and teleport she had used only been a 5th level power, the freezing sphere a 7th level one. They were not remotely the most powerful things she could do, if she so _wished._

Taylor twitched, backing away from that thought. That way lay madness, and she'd seen Pet Semantary once. Nope. Just, nope.

After all, there were no parahuman powers that could bring the dead back to life. Heal, yes. Resuscitate, maybe, regular doctors could do that. Resurrect? If there were, no one talked about it. And since people _would_ talk about it…

Putting down her notebook, Taylor sighed. While she no longer really needed to eat, drink or breathe (although she still _could_ if she wanted to, and breathing was a hard habit to break), sleep was one of the things that she still needed to do, especially since her power restored itself after she rested for at least 8 hours. At least she no longer had to deal with lying restlessly in bed as her mind whirled, waiting to be lulled into unconsciousness.

Pulling up a 2nd tier power, a sort of polypurpose panacea, Taylor used it on herself with a mutter, entering a pleasant and restful sleep.

….

It was now a perfectly ordinary morning in Brockton Bay. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, gangs ganged, police policed, Wards warded, Coil coiled, the Bay's Nazis were neither national nor practiced socialism (they were clearly being capitalist!), and Taylor decided on what powers she'd have that day.

It wasn't really necessary to pick then and there, but given how many powers she had available to use versus how many of those she knew the effect of, she still had some experimenting to do. She knew how to teleport to places she knew, how to turn invisible (there were several ways, and was figuring ways to recognize stronger forms of invisibility in higher tier powers), how to mend and repair inanimate objects (also several ways), how to fly (so many ways), and even how to heal wounds (only one, surprisingly. The rest where just temporary facsimiles). And apparently, simulate volcanic eruptions and ice ages. So she knew that among her powers were big, destructive powers that it really wouldn't be smart to use against squishy humans, which was most of them. However, she had a plan! She would find a sufficiently isolated area far from Brockton Bay, go there by teleport, test spells, and then come back home with her dad none the wiser. It was foolproof!

Plan in place, she opened her family's old atlas, a relic from the day before the internet, and tried to figure out a sufficiently isolated place where she could test her powers without hurting anyone. After staring for a moment she shrugged and closed the book. It wasn't like anyone lived in Antarctica anyway. Let the power testing commence!

….

"– _large areas of the Canadian wilderness were found devastated by unknown parahuman powers. According to experts, the wide array of destruction found in the area indicates that the damage was caused by a large group with diverse abilities. Experts from both the PRT and the Guild suspect at least 3 changers according to different footprints found, at least one pyrokinetic, an audiokinetic, a parahuman capable of producing large amounts of acid, a gravitokinetic, and a macrohydrokinetic. Members of the Guild and the Royal Canadian Air Force pursued a suspected member of the group on a high speed chase through the air before losing sight of the fleeing suspect due to what Thinkers have identified as a form of teleportation._

 _A state of emergency is still underway in flooded areas, although experts remind residents that this was not a Leviathan attack–"_

….

The power testing has finished.

In hindsight, it not being that cold should have been a clue she wasn't in Antarctica. So apparently the teleportation power has a chance of being unreliable when one is not really familiar with the destination, and also has a range limit of 2000 miles. In hindsight, she really should have checked that with her flash of omniscience. Taylor wasn't sure whether or not that accounted for the curvature of the Earth, but at least her greater teleportation power had no such limits. It had gotten her back home safe and sound even after she'd flown far enough to be well beyond 2000 miles from her bedroom.

Taylor resolved to keep her tests local and small. Keep it to tier 4 powers. That should keep it from getting out of hand and still help her get a handle of her abilities.

….

"– _firefighters finally managed to get the burning warehouses under control at 4:37 AM. By then the fire had spread to 2 other buildings in the area. No one was hurt, but fire marshals and later the PRT confirmed that the probable cause of the fire was parahuman activity. The PRT suspect the culprit to be the same parahuman who caused a localized shower of molten rock one official had likened to a volcanic eruption that sank an abandoned shipping vessel and left an 80 foot wide patch of the bay frozen–"_

….

Okay, new plan! Keep tests down to tier 3 powers only! That should be safe, right?

….

"– _a local park caught fire last night–"_

….

Okay, throwing the molten orb of metal had probably been a bad idea. Taylor really should have watched where and what she'd been throwing before she'd done it. This was getting pretty dangerous. But how else was she going to get a list of her full range of powers?

Taylor recognized the sensation of her flash of omniscience activating, then groaned into her hands as an itemized list of powers, with a short summary of what they did, helpfully appeared in her head. Was her power being smug at her? It felt as if her power was being smug at her for doing stupid things when she could have just asked. Yes, it was definitely being smug, there was one of those mental tags drawing her attention to a power that allowed her to create pocket dimensions. How very useful and convenient.

When she became a hero, she should probably do everything in her power to make sure this dark and sordid past of hers never saw the light of day, except posthumously.

….

 _ **Pick Skills and Feats! Buy Equipment!**_

When you're young, there's a point when you yearn to become a hero, unless the yearning is to be a princess. Often the difference is split to become a hero princess, which was apparently the popular aim in Japan before Kyushu sank. Sailors are a part of it somehow. Taylor didn't really get it. Maybe it had to do with that shipping thing she sometimes came across? Sailors sailed ships, right?

Taylor had done this very thing, once upon a time. Mostly she'd imagined herself as Alexandria, and her desire to be a hero was in no way changed by the fact she basically became like Eidolon. Though she doubted Eidolon's powers included a non-annoying helper tool.

And now that she had powers, she had a chance to make this dream come true! The chance to be a hero, to do good and fight evil! Yeah!

…

Okay, how exactly does one go about finding evil to fight?

…

This hero thing might be harder than she thought.

Something simpler then. A costume! Yes, a costume was needed, a distinctive look that instantly identified you, bringing hope to the masses and fear in the evil, and incidentally kept one's squishy insides on the inside instead of ventilated and on the outside. Despite being told by her power she was marginally tougher and able to take far more punishment than a baseline human (which apparently was not the same thing to her power, in the specific), she didn't want to get hurt. After all, even Alexandria wore a helmet, even if theoretically she was tougher than any helmet ever made. What did she even use it for? Keeping the rain out of her hair and eyes?

Actually, that was a pretty good reason. Wet hair can be really annoying when it's on your face. Clearly Alexandria wore her helmet for practicality. Taylor's own costume would definitely have a helmet. Her hair was important, after all.

Sadly, her powers were ill-suited towards giving her a costume. Those that changed her form to make her sufficiently unique were sufficiently brief as to be unhelpful, those that changed her appearance _and_ added protection were even briefer and good only when combat was already joined, and her creation powers, nice as they were and allowing her to make armor made of metal and even more exotic alloys, didn't let them _stay_ made for long. It would not do to have her costume and armor evaporate into nothingness after time had passed. At best, she could power-fabricate something given sufficient raw materials.

So she did. It was difficult to craft a costume with her powers. Even if it was doing all the manual labor, her skills at designing the costume in question were literally amateurish. And it turned out that some fabrics, while good for hoodies and jeans, were less than comfortable when skintight against one's body in the traditionally-approved heroic tradition. Itching, chaffing and uncomfortable tightness and lack of stretching ensued. And it looked _very_ unflattering on her. You could see the lines of her underwear!

Taylor found she had to resign herself to not being able to pull off the classic look.

Ironically, she was much better when it came to crafting actual armor. At least, that's what she felt like. Her power said so. While she might fumble through sewing– all right, _fabricating_ – clothes, she felt she could make armor with her eyes closed. Well, _one_ eye closed, it wouldn't do to hit her thumb or something stupid like that. If she had the right equipment, that was.

Fortunately, that was much simpler. Having a boat graveyard in the city meant having a lot of freely available scrap metal of formerly maritime quality. It was a simple matter of ripping out chunks and fabricating a simple anvil. A forge was marginally more difficult but doable. The internet was very helpful in this regard. Using her creation power also helped, since Taylor would only actually need the firebrick when she was actually forging, and it would last long enough that she'd be done when it ceased to exist.

It was all very satisfying to put together and make, even if she afterwards she realized she could just use her power to create armaments to form armor. Er, at least she'd have the tools for future projects. And she'd probably need it for the stuff actually made of metal, like the helmet. Yup, she'd definitely need it for the helmet!

Anyway, the actual costume! Despite being a lower tier power than the one she used to create her firebricks, the armor that resulted was solid and not going to evaporate, unless you counted rust and sublimation. Really, what criteria did her powers use to determine what stayed and what evaporated? It was then a simple matter to refine the resulting armor.

Said armor was a spider-silk bodysuit. Made with treated spider-silk. Of the created armaments that could be generate by her power, this had seemed the lightest and most suited to her needs. There had been a spider web nearby to use as a material template, which her power apparently needed.

Taylor examined the bodysuit, hefting it in her hands. It was impossibly smooth and light. It also looked unwieldly complicated to put on. It was so formfitting it practically needed a power just to crawl inside!

Taylor paused. _Did_ she have a power for putting things on? She expended a flash of omniscience.

Huh, she _did_. Well, that was helpful. And convenient in an emergency, too!

One swift girding power later, and Taylor looked down at herself, examining the plain, dark, form-fitting bodysuit. It was much more comfortable than her previous attempt, though it would clearly need some kind of undersuit for it, since its style made underwear insufficient and pants too much. Maybe yoga pants or something? Or at least, something that used to be yoga pants before she used it as raw material for fabricating. Still it was comfortable, moderately tough without being stiff, though it slightly hampered her arm movements. That might give her a chance of missing with her powers, if she wasn't careful. Appearance-wise, it wasn't very impressive, but it was a good start.

She was still not pulling off the classic look. Damn it. Maybe she can pad out some areas or something…

It probably needed some kind of boots though, her sneakers sticking out from the bottom like that sort of detracted from the grandeur. Could she do boots? She expended another flash of omniscience. Very convenient, that. Forget disintegration and time stopping, this was her favorite power.

Oh look, she could! Boots imbued with her powers, in fact. Huh, so Eidolon _and_ Dauntless? Sweet! What else could she imbue her powers into? She expended another flash.

…

…

…

…

 _ **!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!**_

It was very good that Taylor was alone at home. Cackling, maniacal laughter wasn't very heroic.

…

Wait, she couldn't use the same power that made her bodysuit to make boots? Or a helmet? The fuck? Her power was strangely very arbitrary about the weirdest things. Well, she'd find a way around that.

….

It took her a week and a half but Taylor eventually got her costume situation sorted out. Boots had been fabricated from old shoes and other boots bought at a thrift store, and protective powers had been imbued into her bodysuit. It had taken a few days, during which she moved her forge and other tools from her basement to a convenient pocket dimension another handy power let her make. Because apparently that was another thing her power could do.

The bodysuit had needed extra reinforcement (scavenged from another bodysuit created the same way and used as raw material for fabrication) before she could enhance it with her power. The result was something tougher than what she'd started with still yet still light and flexible as silk. And that was _before_ she started imbuing it with her powers. The boots too. Old shirts had been used for the undersuit to prevent chafing and underwear lines. And the equipment she spent so much time preparing was used to finally make her helmet. It was a simple helmet modeled on something she once saw a villain wear in an Aleph movie, with no bells and whistles beyond a reflective faceplate achieved by fabricating with clear acrylic and putting in an automotive glass film, with lining gutted from a second hand motorcycle helmet. Subtle slits in the side let her hear, and more slits in the front let her talk and breath.

It was definitely a prototype. She was already trying to figure out a better look for the next one.

She might get a cape later on. Tights weren't her thing, but she was pretty sure even she couldn't screw up a cape.

She'd also added a vest to her ensemble made from snakeskin (handily repurposed from some old boots. Thrift stores were very handy) reinforced and enhanced by her power for added protection.

Taylor looked at herself in the mirror: Well-made dark boots made for walking (as well as running, stomping, and kicking) reached up her calves, transitioning smoothly into the dark silk bodysuit that shimmered slightly, still clinging to her despite the fact it was now thicker than when she had started. The snakeskin tunic secured over her chest, imbued with her power for added protection and dexterity, among other things. The helmet, which thankfully didn't make her head look oversized, with the reflective front she had no trouble seeing through and the opening at the back to let her hair flow out, secured by artfully curved leaf-like frills so that someone couldn't easily brain her through the back of her own helmet (okay, maybe a few bells and whistles. Her hair was worth it, damn it!)

She was kinda disappointed with the textured work gloves she was wearing to cover her hands. They obviously didn't match. Clearly, gloves would need to be the next thing she made. That or her cape, that was important too. Or something else that she could imbue with her powers to make her tougher? Her powers where conspicuously lacking in healing. Many, many, _many_ ways to make reality and the landscape cry, but not much healing. Eh, she'd decide later.

It was finishing her helmet tonight that had decided things for her. It was as good as a mask. No, better! It kept her head together! Sure, it was like wearing a flowerpot on her head, but she could take it. The fabricating power was the only one she'd really used today, so she was basically in top shape. Clearly, some kind of test run was in order! Purely to try out her helmet, of course. After all, she needed to see if it would work in the field, and such!

Taylor nodded as she decided, grinning widely and noting with satisfaction there was no obvious change in the darkness beneath the helmet's visor. Yup, definitely better than a mask. Still, she'd have to wait until her dad was asleep, to be sure she wouldn't get busted.

Still, when night fell and she was sure she'd get away with it… hero time!

….

 _"–strikes as an abandoned apartment building in the Docks burned in what authorities are identifying as the same parahuman ability that earlier this month set several warehouses in the same district aflame, in what is already being dubbed a case of serial arson. Fortunately, disaster was averted by the arrival of a new independent hero, who swiftly evacuated several transients that had been in the building at the time before putting out the fire using an unknown ability. The parahuman then swiftly vacated the scene –"_

….

DAMN IT POWERS!

Taylor let her helmeted head thud on her desk in frustration. Okay, she saved people but did it really count if it was from a fire she accidentally caused? How the fuck had that even happened, anyway, she wasn't even using fire powers at the time, just some kind of rainbow light!

She had a flash of omniscience.

…

Damn it, rainbows were ridiculously dangerous!-!-!

Screw it, she was going to bed! She'd consider this rehearsal. _Tomorrow_ would be the _official_ debut of Brockton Bay's newest hero– !

…

It was at that moment that Taylor realized she had yet to figure out a name.

…

Screw it. Bed!

….

 **\- To be continued…**

….

A/N: So, Taylor Triggers as a Pathfinder Level 20 Wizard with 10 Tiers of Mythic Archmage. And yes, I did, in fact, write down her sheet.

And yes, spider-silk armor is a part of the Pathfinder armor list. Apparently drow use it (what a huge surprise). Spells used to make it are _create armaments_ and _masterwork transformation,_ as _create armaments_ , unlike other spells that make stuff, makes permanent stuff and the spell text does _not_ say you can't use it to make magic items. Fun!

Funny story, one of the things that annoys me about D&D!Taylor stories is that the start takes 3-5 chapters of Taylor POV to suss out what she can do. This is purely for Taylor's benefit, since even if most of us _weren't_ the sort of person who'd know what a Sorcerer 10/Dragon Disciple 10 can do, it's an easy internet search. So those chapters are purely for _Taylor_ to know what her powers are. One of the reasons I'm writing this is because these segments are usually so muse-consuming the author doesn't really have enough inspiration left to tell more story. Some of you are writers, you know what I mean.

So it was a bitter irony when I found myself halfway through writing just such a 'Taylor POV of power learning' segment, and frantically did the mental equivalent of gasping in horror, reeling back from the corpse of my child that I had been doing monstrous mad scientist things to as I have become the very monster I despised, curling into a ball as I wept at my own hypocrisy. THEN I remembered a handy power I'd put in Taylor's character sheet called Flash of Omniscience. So I had her use it to ask the question "What are my powers?". And she basically got back her own character sheet.

Now, while I said Taylor is a Pathfinder Wizard, I must, unfortunately, make some changes. After all, while her POWER is Wizard-esque, it's still a parahuman power. She didn't go to some school of magic to finally make it to level 1 Wizard, then adventure through 6 modules worth of an Adventure Path to get to level 18 then grind some more to get to level 20. She got the powers in one lump sum, so to speak. While I HAVE the character sheet for Taylor, it's basically there to remind myself of what she'd be able to do _outside_ of the spells she casts, because in pure numbers alone, by Worm standards she's a Brute/Mover/Thinker even without spells (if we assume a level 1 commoner is a civilian and a level 1 PC is a standard squishy non-brute parahuman). And yes, this means most level 1 evocations and practically ALL level 2 and above are instant kills for most people. Given most games give a taser the same stats as an offensive cantrip, which never run out in Pathfinder… well, no one can really deny wizards are bullshit, can they?

So while she'd have to take a few minutes to consider her powers and pick what spells she 'prepares' for the day, she won't need a spellbook to do it, beyond maybe as a list to remind herself of what she's used before and is sure of, in basically the same way we've all had to go back to the book when someone brings out a spell that isn't as regularly used as, say, _fireball_. There won't be any material components for the spells themselves (because abilities in Worm don't really need them) unless they're something for the spell to work _on_ (like that cantrip _launch bolt,_ since the spell is specifically for launching crossbow bolts, all the optimizing with Eschew Materials aside). If she were a game character, she'd function as a spontaneous wizard: ALL the spells, but less spells per day than a Sorcerer of her same level. I felt it was a good balance

With some spells, my interpretation will be a bit liberal, because of a combination of 'not a game' and 'reality doesn't work like that'. For example, _freezing sphere._ The description say that it instantaneously creates a spherical zone of cold. Okay. It does 15d6 points of damage in a 40-foot radius (assuming 20 caster levels, which Taylor would have), meaning a sphere 80 feet wide. Basic math. It explicitly states that the sphere striking a body of water or liquid freezes the liquid to a depth of 6 inches. Okay, that makes sense since the cold is radiating outward from a small globe the spells is initially launched from, so the ice that forms could be isolating the rest of the water from the cold. It's not just ice, it's absolute zero ice. But six inches thick of ice that wide, at caster level 20, would NOT only last 2 minutes (120 seconds = 6-second rounds at 1 round per caster level), when I've literally had ice in my drinks last longer. It's not like it's magical ice formed because it's part of the spell, it's ice formed because the spell affected temperature. Logically, it should therefore act like normal ice and last as long.

So yeah, little reality checks like that. _Fireballs_ might or might not form perfect spheres and stop after traveling exactly 20 feet, whichever is funnier, but only just (probably won't, the text describes it as a detonation, meaning realistically speaking it should be doing bludgeoning or force damage, not just fire damage). If this kills the cheer, I will not be buying beer.

Also, I will not be using standard AC figuring. Some forms of AC, like armor bonuses, equipment enhancement bonuses not to Dex, natural armor, shield bonuses and some size bonuses, will function as Damage Reduction instead of a means of avoiding damage entirely, since by description they're either essentially forcefields or toughened skin, and keep you from being damaged _when_ you're hit. Meanwhile, deflection bonuses, dodge bonuses, enhancement bonuses to Dex, insight bonuses, and some size bonuses translate as making Taylor harder to hit. That said, that means she gets hit more than someone of her level facing what are basically commoners would normally, owing to the fact 10 + her current dex bonus is abysmal for evading attack rolls. So it _kinda_ evens out? Look, if you wanted a rules-exact transplant of an RPG class to a prose story, I'll point out not even the novels do that (both Pathfinder and Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, etc). Game-mechanics Light/Web Novels don't count, they're their own little bundle of bullshit wank.

Also, _wish_ can stand in as a needed spell during item creation. Like, say, cleric ones. Sure it's broken, but hey, so is _wish_ (see previous, lack of material components). So if Taylor made a magic item using a spell not on the wizard spell list, it's because she used _wish_ , and didn't have to use up a diamond, because this is not a game and there's no need for balance.

I reserve that right to give Taylor a harem. Perhaps a cute loli in a robe with a Thinker power, or a tomboyish Striker/Blaster/Shaker with electricity powers, or a Master with huge tits and weird eyes…

Also, see my profile for a poll related to this fic! You have until my next update to vote... so, Months!

….

 _ **OMAKE!**_

….

 _Meanwhile, in Chicago…_

"No, I have not been anywhere near Brockton Bay, _or_ Canada! Stars and stones, not every mysterious fire is my fault! I haven't set fire to anything all week!" Protectorate hero Myrddin said into the phone. "Not that I'm ever the cause of fires or anything. Ever. At all."

He pointedly moved a folder over the part of his desk blotter reminding him he had another fire safety seminar that week

….

Please review, C&C welcome.

Until next time, this is Shadow, signing off.


	2. Taylor's Level-Appropriate Adventure!

A/N: And the votes are in! Sorry FFNET, but SB voted more, so they had the deciding poll. Better luck next time.

….

Toaru Majutsu no Taylor-chan: A Certain Mythic Archmage

by Shadow Crystal Mage

Chapter 2: Noob Tutorial Module! Taylor's Level-Appropriate Starting Adventure!

Disclaimer: Worm created by Wildbow. Pathfinder by Paizo.

….

 _ **Finishing Details!**_

Taylor held the knife in her hands. It was made from a simple pattern she found on the internet, a well-balanced throwing knife fabricated from scrap metal and better shaped that she found have thought, considering she'd originally known bupkiss about knives except maybe how to cook with them or use them for art projects (paper, the cutting thereof). Since she'd gotten her powers, however, she'd become strangely good at throwing things, knives among them. She wasn't about to take someone's eye out from fifty feet with a paperclip or anything, but she wasn't about to miss a man-sized non-moving target from 20 feet away.

She beheld the target before her. Grim and gritty dark loner heroic convention dictated the target contain a picture of a hated enemy, perhaps either Emma or Sophia. Staunch traditionalists would have been disappointed by the plain piece of paper divided into areas with different names on it.

Slowly, Taylor raised the throwing knife and smoothly cast it towards the target. At the last second, she closed her eyes.

 **[1d20+12! 20!]**

 _THUNK!_

Taylor opened her eyes. The knife had struck the paper target way off center, which was exactly what she wanted. She stepped closer to make out the name written on the area of the sheet. She nodded, then tugged out the throwing knife.

As ways of choosing names go, it was a lot more fun than agonizing over a list at her desk!

Between the delay from officially picking a name and laying low in case of awkward questions like, say, why her bodysuit smelled like smoke Taylor managed to find the two days she needed to make a cape. Actually, it was closer to a cloak, made from using her power to create more spider-silk bodysuits and cannibalizing them for material to fabricate said cloak and imbue it with her power. And _this_ time she was ready to deal with the fact her raw material was a dark silk by creating some dyes with her power beforehand. Sure, it only came in one color, but it was a nice, pleasing gold, even if it _did_ look like dull orange in its container. Taylor was now the proud owner of a bright, golden cloak that let her stick to walls and ceilings. The hood was extra-large so she could put it up with her helmet on.

And now she definitely no longer felt her helmet had her head look too big!

Now filled with newfound confidence, and reasonably certain she knew for sure which of her powers set things on fire, she was ready to give her heroic debut another shot! Third time's the charm, after all!

…

Oh, PLEASE let things work out this time!

….

It was a dark and chilly night, just barely an example of purple prose by a florid, melodramatic hack writer; rain did not fall in torrents, not even in occasional intervals, nor checked by a violent gust of wind sweeping up the street (for it is in Brockton our scene lies), and there was certainly no rattling along the housetops, nor fierce agitating of the flames of lamps struggling against the darkness. Really, one wonders why anyone was bothering to describe it at all.

Taylor took this all in from atop the tall building downtown she had teleported to after securely locking her room to locked-room-mystery standards. She'd taken extra precautions tonight. For one, no powers that could set anything on fire. Not even electricity powers save the one 1st tier power whose output, if she was understanding it right, was only equal to a stungun. Even so, she had resolved to only use that in an emergency. Her course was clear. She would, from this day forth, NOT be associated with arson, unlike Myrrdin.

Yes, she would _definitely_ stick with that resolution.

She activated a 6th tier power, feeling it course through her. In her head, a mental countdown began tick down that would end in about 20 hours as she felt herself fill with the ability to tell gravity to go fuck itself and leave her alone. Grinning beneath her helmet, she lifted off, once more enjoying the familiar feeling of flight. Spinning in midair purely for the fun of it, she picked a direction and purposefully began to fly, stout of heart and firm in her convictions as she sought to take the fight to evil!

…

So, how did one go about finding evil to fight?

…

Okay, how did they do this on TV?

…

Okay, let's keep this simple. Go to the darkest, sketchiest part of town, the part her parents have always told her not to linger in after dark, and then see if anything presented itself! Simple!

….

Seeing in the dark wasn't a problem for Taylor, another benefit to her power. It didn't matter how dark it got, she could see just fine, although color tended to disappear into shades of gray the darker it got, leaving her with black and white vision. Given that the moon was waning from full, that wasn't a problem, but it did complicate flying. She'd wondered what people had been pointing at until she realized she was outlined in the sky.

Taylor had quickly dropped down to roof level, since being a huge golden thing in the sky with moonlight shining down on you wasn't exactly conducive to being able to find criminals. They tended to hide from things like that.

So, her first official, official night out turned out to be quiet due to what even she was going to ruefully admit was a rookie mistake. The closest thing to action she saw was when she had idly turned her head and spotted someone watching her with binoculars from five buildings away. She'd barely have noticed him if it he hadn't moved his head slightly right them, crouched down as he was. When she'd blinked, he was gone, and she'd needed to use her flash of omniscience to confirm he'd even been there. She wondered how long Oni Lee had been watching her before she had noticed.

It was quite unfortunate she didn't have a power that notified her when someone was looking at her. Flight notwithstanding because there really wasn't anything to be done about that now after her mistake, she really didn't want villains to know what her powers were before she was ready, ready being defined as _after_ she'd already used said powers to take them down. She made her way to a blind alley, keeping an eye out the whole time and stretching her perceptions to her limit before teleporting back home. Despite not managing to do any heroing, she was ready to call the night a success due to a lack of burning buildings. That was something at least?

Eh, she'd call it a win. There was always tomorrow night, after all.

….

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 **Topic: New Cape Sighting! Wearing Actual Cape!**  
 **In: Boards ► Capes ► Sightings ► East Coast ► Massachusetts ► Brockton Bay**  
 **BlueAndPiercings** (Original Poster)  
Posted On Jan 22nd 2011:  
So, I was walking home to my girlfriend, minding my own business when I saw a bunch of other people on the street I was on looking up at pointing and the sky. I got out my phone and wouldn't you know it, there was this flying cape. Literally, they had on a cape, a nice red number. Can't actually remember the last time we got someone who actually wore a cape with their costume. These days it's all body armor and helmets. Video here: [link]

So, can anyone identify this one? Did they come out recently and I just haven't heard of them or can I legitimately call first?

Edit: weird, the cape is orange in the video. I distinctly remember it being red.

Edit 2: Okay, others have chimed in to have seen the cape (the person) in a gold cape (the garment). Other have reported red too, and we've had a few oranges like in the video. I think it's safe to call some kind of Tinkertech or Stranger effect.

 **(Showing page 1 of 10)**

► **KnifeBird**  
Replied On Jan 22nd 2011:  
Wow, an actual cape on a cape? Talk about old school. Do they wear their underwear on the outside too?

► **FloatingSapphire**  
Replied On Jan 22nd 2011:  
I think it's supposed to be a cloak, you can kind of see a hood behind their helmet there.

► **Angel_Nemesis** (Moderator) (Wiki Warrior)  
Replied On Jan 22nd 2011:  
Ah, yes, for the good old days when capes were capes and wore capes.

► **MysteryWavelength**  
Replied On Dec 26th 2018:  
-.- .. -. -.. .- / ... .- .-. -.. / - - / - . .-.. .-.. -..- / .. ... / - ... .- - / .- / -.. ..- -.. . / - .-. / .- / -.-. ... .. -.-. -.- ..-..

► **Brocktonite03** (Veteran Member)  
Replied On Jan 22nd 2011:  
Ugh, not this guy again.

Anyway, haven't heard of anyone coming out lately, unless we count that serial arsonist. I don't think this is them, mainly because nothing ended up on fire. It might be that one who put out the burning building a few nights ago, but I didn't hear anything about that one wearing a cape or flying, and they didn't leave a name or anything. Maybe they got a new accessory?

► **Legal Loli** (Banned) (Unverified Cape)  
Replied On Jan 22nd 2011:  
Huh. I wonder if they'd like to [REDACTED SO HARD]

Angel_Nemesis: Banned for NSFW.

► **Dawgsmiles** (Veteran Member)  
Replied On Jan 22nd 2011:  
Everyone knows those fires was just Myrddin again.

► **Bob** (Verified Myrrdin's Assistant)  
Replied On Jan 22nd 2011:  
My employer would like me to point out that no, it is not, and would everyone kindly stop trying to implicate him for every mysterious fire that happens in the north-western hemisphere.

► **Bagrat** (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)  
Replied On Jan 22nd 2011:  
Hey, Bob. I assume you can act as a character witness for that?

► **Bob** (Verified Myrrdin's Assistant)  
Replied On Jan 22nd 2011:  
Regrettably, he was out of my sight for 20 minutes when I went for coffee, so he might have gone to Brockton when I wasn't looking.

 **End of Page. 1,** **2** **,** **3** **...** **8** **,** **9** **,** **10**

….

 _ **The Right Places To Be Looking For Trouble**_

After dad left for work, Taylor finally sat down to consider her approach. She'd, rather foolishly, assumed that heroing would be easy, that she could fly over the city and stop the muggings, purse snatchings and bank robberies that happened every few blocks. Clearly this wasn't the case. For all that Brockton Bay had one of the highest villain populations in the country, they were not the type to foolishly rob a bank where anyone– well, anyone with powers and heroic inclinations, anyway– could stop them. This wasn't New York. No, worse. New York was actually doing pretty well after Behemoth, and with Legend being based there. This wasn't 60's New York.

So, she should look at this intelligently.

Criminals wouldn't hang around or commit crimes where they had a high likelihood of getting caught. That meant very public spaces, areas near police precincts, near the PRT building, the Boardwalk. That much was a no brainer. They also wouldn't be where heroes were, so scratch the area near Arcadia (rumored school of the Wards), the area where New Wave lived, the city college, and maybe the areas where known rogues hung out.

Taylor to a moment to consider what she knew of Brockton's Bay's rogues. There was Parian and… wow. Was Parian the only rogue in the city? That couldn't be right, could it?

Taylor used a flash of omniscience and got the same baffling result. Apparently, as far as she knew, Parian _was_ the only rogue in the city. Clearly not the _only_ one though, since that 'highest number of capes per capita' thing had to come from _somewhere_.

She supposed it was time to actually do research.

A quick teleport to the library, appearing on the second floor in the room where they kept copies of tax laws (so it was completely private), and a quick sign in to use the computers showed that, _no_ , Parian was in fact _not_ the only rogue in the city, how dare you think that. There was The Stud, who could see through drywall ( _just_ drywall, and only through a single layer) and owned some kind of contractor business (involving drywall); Mister Plow, who could telekinetically push snow ( _just_ snow, not very fast, and only pushing, no levitating) and had a contract with the city to clear roads in winter; Syntax, who could see and hear errors in spelling, punctuation, formatting and coding (how does one _hear_ punctuation?-!) and worked as a newspaper editor with her own local column; Aoide, who had an area effect that made everything around her a Hollywood musical, and was the only reason the city even had a functioning theater group; Mix Meyestro (that wasn't a typo), who had a thinker power that told him what drinks and ingredients people were allergic to and ran his own bar…

Solemnly, Taylor closed several more pages about local rogues. Ah, THAT was why Parian was the only rogue that came to mind in Brockton Bay. Everyone else was so embarrassing that no one wanted to even remember them, and one of the local gangs had a guy that fused with _garbage_.

Putting that dark and terrible thing behind her, Taylor spent some time online researching what was known about the Protectorate's patrol schedules. There wasn't a lot, mainly because the mods took down anything that provided too much information, probably to keep villains from doing the very thing Taylor was trying to do and figure out where and when the heroes would be so they could avoid them, but the heroes could only suppress a schedule so much. Taylor spent several hours noting hero sightings, tying them to time and location and regularity. Then, with all that in her head, she concentrated on the question: _what are the most likely patrol routes of the heroes?_

A flash of omniscience later, all the disparate bits came together to form a natural answer.

Oh, most favorite and wonderful power, never leave, for one would be lost without you!

With all that information, she drew a rough map of the city, then began to shade out the areas not covered by the factors she had identified.

…

Wow, her house was in a real sketchy part of the city, wasn't it? Well, going by the information she compiled. Er, should she do anything about that? She probably should, shouldn't she.

Er, later. Right now, her map! So, according to the information she'd gathered, if she went to _these_ areas of the city and didn't let herself be visible against the moonlit sky or anything like that, she'd be reasonably certain to find crime she could stop!

…

And if all else failed she'd make an illusion of a drunk rich guy waving his wallet around and see what happened. Anyone who'd take advantage of a drunk rich guy must be a criminal, right?

….

It was a good plan, a simple plan. It was a plan that should by all rights work. She even took two days off to make the equipment she needed to _not_ make the same rookie mistake as before. The thing she made to make her invisible was in the shape of a ring, because she was a sucker for the classics, and she imbued her helmet with a power that let it change both its shape and hers, with the added side effect that it gave her a mild strength boost when she was transformed. So naturally, she used it to disguise her appearance so she'd have a second layer of secret identity under her helmet. She wasn't sure if said disguise would stop working if she took her helmet off, or if it would stay on as long as she had the helmet in her hands, but if someone had a power that let them peek, they'd be very surprised to see that Marilyn Monroe had become a cape.

And it looked like she was keeping her helmet after all. Well, at least it changed shape now, so she didn't need to have it replaced.

She'd even practiced making illusions of rich drunk guys, and it took her a few tries to keep it from looking like Alan Barnes, or anyone of the rich guys whose names she knew from TV. She learned how to make the look drunk, walk drunk, even _smell_ drunk (mainly be taking the smell of beer, ramping it up and making it come off her guy in waves). Probably not how it actually smelled, but she didn't know any drunk guys. At last, her preparation was (once more) complete!

The area she teleported to was deep in the area she'd marked as possibly being high in criminal activity. It was so dark that if it weren't for her vision power she wouldn't have been able to see her own hand, even with moonlight. Yet she could see people bellow, either skulking like they didn't want to be seen or confident in a way that said they weren't afraid of trouble, because they _were_ trouble. Much more promising.

Looking down from the roof she was currently perched on, invisible, Taylor had to give the world points for irony. The first, official (as in not just covering her ass– er, _taking responsibility for her action_ ) heroic action she was going to take was apparently keeping a drunk guy from being robbed.

Taylor had noticed the man as he walked under her building, mostly because he'd been walking strangely, stopping and starting again in odd spurts and wavering from side to side in that way so ingrained by exposure to TV and movies. Actually, he didn't seem that bad off, but he was clearly a little off, and when she saw him he'd been looking around and muttering to himself. She figured the word was 'tipsy' or 'buzzed'.

The word for the three following him was 'predatory'. Or 'trouble'. Or most likely 'Merchant'. _They_ were twitching oddly, and seemed to blink _way_ too much. They much sneaker than drunk guy though and **[1d20+10! 20!]** they clearly had trouble in mind. The word there was probably 'malice'. And… yeah, they looked like the kind of idiot impaired enough to think "meh, I could take her" if they saw a hero…

Taylor realized she was procrastinating when she heard the sounds of running. Well, stumbling, really. The man had looked behind him and had apparently tripped over his own feet, prompting the three following behind to abandon what little subtlety they had in favor of charging forward. One had drawn a knife. She took a breath, steeled herself, then dashed across the roof of the building, activated her boots, then stepped off the building's edge to let her boots float her down. She landed just in front of the drunk man, who didn't notice what little noise she made as he tried to stumble to his feet and crawl away at the same time, less coordinated now than he had been before. Putting herself between the man and the still approaching trio, she muttered the verbal command to deactivate her ring.

She knew she'd become visible when the three suddenly halted in their tracks. Turning to face them head on, Taylor opened her mouth–

And froze. Fuck, what was she going to say? "Hello fellas, are you planning to mug that guy over there?"? "You boys keeping your noses clean?"? "Greetings, citizens!"? Should she go straight to beating them up? But they hadn't done anything! But they looked like they might! Argh, what was she supposed to say! She'd been standing silent too long, hadn't she? Great, now they thought she was just a weirdo, so now they were going to ignore her and have nothing to do with her and make fun of her behind her back, and Emma would know and she would laugh and–

She had a flash of omniscience, and with a jerk realized that was crazy talk, and she was simply having a panic attack from the surprise of suddenly realizing she was in a social interaction situation, and she should probably see a therapist or something about that but for now she had to deal with this situation in front of her. She was a hero, darn it! She should act like one!

But she didn't know how…

Then act like she knew what she was doing! Bluff! Yes, if she didn't know how to be a hero, then she needed to fake it until she made it! She had to act like Alexandria! Cool, intimidating, and going to rip their heads off without noticing! No, wait, bad example! Wow, Alexandria really didn't seem to interact much did she? She could more easily envision Alexandria punching someone than in casual conversation… NO, focus!

Like Legend then! Friendly, inspiring, heroic, noble, gay, everything a hero should be! Act like Legend!

 **[1d20+21!** _ **39!**_ **]**

Her mouth was still in the process of opening, as if no time had passed at all and she'd been able to have a very swift internal panic attack, gave herself a pep talk, planned a course of action, debated its merits and decided to act on it all in no time at all. Her back straightened, and for once she actively used every spare inch of her height. She was a hero! A force for good! She spoke well of others, even villains, and respected them for what they could do, and tried to turn them from their path. She protected the innocent… and kept the guilty from hurting themselves doing something stupid like attack her.

"Good evening boys," she said, trying to sound like Legend had those times she'd heard him on TV. Not his voice, but his tone. Smooth, confident, diplomatic. "Nice night out, isn't it?"

 **[1d20+21! 30!]**

The three paused, hesitant. Taylor's helmet prevented her from giving them a friendly smile, though she did so anyway since she'd heard that got conveyed in the tone, and she crossed her arms over her chest, trying to look intimidating. She was a hero, she wasn't someone you messed with!

 **[1d20+21! 35!]**

 _That_ , at least, she succeeded in, going by the nervous looks, increase in twitching and the fact the guy in the back took a cautious step away from her. Her smile turning smirk like, trying to ignore the giddiness she was feeling at managing to intimidate three grown men, she took a lazy step forward.

There was a cry, and she was suddenly looking at three guys running away from her at speed. One looked over his shoulder, as if afraid she was going to come after them, and nearly tripped, bumping into a wall and spinning off before he decided he should concentrate on running.

She did not break out into giggles. Legend wouldn't break out into giggles, after all. Still, it was a close thing.

Sighing, as if disappointed but resigned to the result, she turned to look behind her and found the man still on the ground some ways behind her, unsteadily holding up his phone as he tried to keep her in frame, a look of surprise on his face. She wondered if Legend would have rolled his eyes at this and decided he would have so she did. Still, her stride was confident, a slight spring in her step as she absently waved a hand and said something in a low but clear voice as she tapped one of her 1st tier powers. Four lights came into being above her, dancing through the air and illuminating her and the man very clearly.

"Good evening, sir," she said, still playing Legend to the hilt. It seemed to be working so far. "Are you feeling quite all right? Here, let me help you up."

Thankfully the man had enough presence of mind _not_ to grab the hand she held out with the one holding his phone. He was surprisingly light as Taylor pulled him to his feet with one hand. Wow, that strength boost was better than she thought.

The man swayed slightly, but managed to stay on his feet, and Taylor had to step back a little to keep the phone from hitting her helmet. "Oh, I'm fine man. Where'd you come from?"

"Up," Taylor said easily as she looked the man over. He didn't appear to be injured by his fall, which was good. "I figured three guys chasing after a man by himself had to be trouble. Did you hit your head, sir? You're swaying slightly."

The man smiled sheepishly. "Just had a drink or two, or else I could have taken those guys myself." This time Taylor _did_ roll her eyes. Thank goodness for helmets. "You a new cape?" He still had the phone raised and… yes, he seemed to be 'subtlety' trying to angle it to get himself in the shot, which involved trying to hold it to the side and sweeping it back and forth between the two of them.

"First night out," Taylor responded. As diplomatically as she could **[d20+21! 37!]** , she said, "Do you live nearby sir? Those men might come back and I'd feel a lot better leaving you alone if I knew you were home."

"Oh yeah, I live around here… somewhere…" the man said, sounding bemused. "All the buildings seem to have shrunk though…"

Taylor mentally raised his level of drunk. "If you want, I can help you figure out which building it is. Can you tell me what your address is?"

….

So, it turned out he was three blocks off from where he meant to be. Thankfully the map Taylor had used earlier to plan out her route had names, and it had taken a quick flash of omniscience after finding out where they actually where to tell her how to get to where they were going.

They ran into no trouble on the way. Apparently something about walking around with a helmet and golden cape while lights float above you make you unapproachable.

Thankfully, her rescuee– "Call me Ricky!" he said– had done this enough times (without the getting lost part) he knew how to open his own front door while drunk. Then it was up the stairs to his apartment on the third floor– and the admittedly funny sight of an large Asian man with gang colors abruptly making a perfect about face and going back into his own apartment when he saw Taylor on the landing in front of the stairs– and getting Ricky back to his own door.

The man never put down his phone the whole time.

Staring at the closed front door of a stranger's house in an apartment building she'd never been in before tonight, Taylor took a moment to reflect. Was this what heroism was like? It felt strangely underwhelming.

Shrugging, Taylor turned to head back down the stairs and found herself facing the large Asian man from before, who froze in midstep like a cartoon character, as if hoping she were a T-Rex whose vision was movement based.

Smiling heroically under her helmet, Taylor waved. "Good evening, sir," she said politely. "It's a nice night out for a walk. Hope you enjoy yourself."

Taylor got to see a grown man visibly gulp, his Adam's apple bobbing as he nodded meekly.

Upstairs, there was a heavy thump, a crash and a woman's cry.

Taylor's head snapped up like a velociraptor hearing a random no-name extra. The other man's did too.

"Fucking druggies," he said disapprovingly. Taylor was bemused at his Texan accent. There was another crash, and then the sound of a door slamming. . "Must be high again."

"Trouble?" Taylor asked levelly.

The man eyed her warily, but said, "Beats her and she takes it," he said. He paused. "Gotta kid though."

Taylor nodded levelly. **[1d20+21! 26!]** "Would you be so kind as to call the police while you take your walk sir?" she said, already moving up the stairs as the man meekly nodded. "Thank you. Have a good night." The woman cried again.

It wasn't hard to find the apartment. Taylor briefly contemplated whether she should knock, just to be polite.

Behind the door, there was the sound of someone very agitated (she could tell from all the swearing) punching what sounded like a door. A girl started screaming, her cries slightly muffled.

 _Screw it._

She activated her strength-boosting power, took a moment to line it up, raised her foot. Then she smashed **[1d20+11! 23!]** the door with all her might.

Fortunately, it didn't seem to be a very good door. The wood around the locks shattered like a cheap movie prop made specifically for shattering dramatically when the hero kicked it open, and then Taylor was through into a dingy, really smelly apartment, the tang of some kind of chemical smell in the air. It was at that point she was glad she was physically capable of subsisting without breathing, because it let her hold her breath indefinitely.

A woman was sprawled on the ground, clutching her head and looking both a little out of it and scared. A man in shabby clothes was beating on a closed door, and from the way it was moving every time he hit it, it was an even worse door than the one she'd come in through. The muffled cries of a girl screaming peaked slightly every time the door was pushed in a little bit.

The man turned at her entrance, and Taylor vaguely recognized one of the men she'd scared off. He didn't look so scared now. He looked enraged. Possibly high too. He wasn't twitching as much anymore. With a cry of furious recognition, he charged at Taylor, almost tripping on the corner of a low table between them.

Taylor reacted faster however. Articulating the alien sound that defined her power, she made a gesture, and the man slammed into the barrier she'd raised between them. It let out a flare of energy, stunning the man. It was enough to give Taylor the opening she needed as picked a 2nd tier power, altered it slightly to extend its effect, picked her target and let it loose. She felt her own power washing over her, but she easily resisted it (and made a note that apparently some of her own powers could affect her). The other two in the room weren't as strong, and they both fell unconscious as the sleep effect took over.

The room was suddenly quiet except for a girl screaming.

Gingerly, still not breathing, Taylor walked over to the door and knocked politely. She waited a few seconds then did so again. "Excuse me miss, are you all right?" she said in her most 'Legend comforting scared civilian' voice.

Eventually the scream wavered and stopped.

If Taylor concentrated, she thought she could hear sniffling.

Eventually, a little boy's voice said. "W-who's there?"

As brightly as she could, Taylor said, "Just your friendly neighborhood hero, here to see what the problem is."

There was a pause.

"M-miss Militia?" came the wavering but hopeful reply.

"No, I'm sorry," Taylor said, and she really meant it too. "I'm someone new I'm afraid. Who am I talking to?"

There was a pause and a sniffle. "Tim," was the hesitant reply.

"Well Tim, the police are coming soon," _at least they'd better be_ , Taylor thought, "but until then, would you be a good boy and stay in there in case anything else happens?"

Sniffle. "'kay," Tim said. Then, hopefully, "Can I have a cookie?"

Taylor rolled her eyes. "Sure. Stay there and I'll give you some."

"They're on the top shelf," Tim said, the most eloquent he'd been in the conversation.

"Okay, just sit tight and we'll wait for the police together, okay?" Taylor said. Then she went to get cookies, and after that, a phone, to be sure the police were coming.

….

After finding the cookies and passing them to a hesitant but eager Tim through a crack he opened in the door, calling the police, checking to make sure the woman and the druggie were all right, tying the druggie up with some belts, and then keeping Tim company through the door, Taylor eventually had to explain herself to the nice policemen who eventually arrived about half an hour later. If they were significantly nonplussed by the sight of someone in tights(-ish), helmet and cape holding a conversation with a little boy through a mildly battered door as two adults lay passed out on the floor, they didn't show it.

The man in the lead, a tall, muscular black man so ripped he should have had his own zip code, glanced at the shattered wood around the lock, the general mess of the apartment, made a face at the vaguely chemical smell in the air and finally turned to look at Taylor, who was levitating in the air with her legs crossed because she didn't want to sit on anything in there. Then he nodded and drew out a pad and pen. "You the one who called?" he said.

Taylor nodded, knocking on the door. "Tim, the police are here. You can come out now."

There was a pause, then the door opened slowly, and a small face with cookie crumbs all over it peeked out shyly. "She said I could have cookies," Tim said.

The big policeman smiled then. "That's fine," he said. "We're not the cookie police." Behind him, Taylor heard his partner reporting on the radio. The big officer tapped his pad in preparation to write. "So, what do I call you?"

"Tim," the little boy said.

The officer nodded and dutifully wrote that down. Then he turned towards Taylor. "And you?"

Taylor took a deep breath. "Solomon," she said. "I go by Solomon."

The man nodded. "You Jewish?"

"Or Christian. Or Muslim. Or Mormon. Or Amish," Taylor said. "Though if any of the Nazis ever ask, I'm saying yes to piss them off."

The man chuckled. "I'm officer Fite, ma'am," he said. "Can you tell me what happened here?"

….

Taylor severely underestimated how long that would take. They took a statement, then took it again, then a few more times to be sure. They cuffed the druggie, then got someone to look over the woman, just to be sure. Officer Fite kindly didn't glance sideways at Taylor when describing about head trauma and concussions and how sleeping is very bad for them. Taylor was glad for the helmet.

The neighbors had woken up by then, and someone volunteered to take care of Tim for the night. He asked for more cookies. There were those who took videos on their phones.

Eventually, Officer Fite closed his notepad. "Well, that's it. Normally we'd ask you to make a statement down at the precinct, but you probably have somewhere else you need to be tonight."

"Would it make a difference in putting him away?" Taylor asked. She didn't want him to squeak by on a technicality.

Officer Fite shook his head. "Not really. I'd bet money he has a record, and I don't think anyone's going spring for him."

"Then good night to you, officer," Taylor said holding out his hand. "It's been nice to meet you."

He shook it bemusedly. "You're sure are old school, aren't you? Hell, you're actually wearing a cape."

"How else are people supposed to know I'm one of the good guys?" Taylor said. "Gotta follow the dress code."

Taylor teleported away.

She was back in her room now, her cloak stuffed into her helmet, her helmet stuffed under her bed with her silk armor and boots. She didn't need to turn on the lights. Another plus for perfect night vision. Taylor lay back on her bed, staring at the ceiling as she smiled, reflecting on the night's events. She felt good. Sure, it was only a small start, but she'd managed to take the first steps to being a hero. She saved a man and a little boy, and she managed to not set anything on fire doing it. Life was awesome. Nothing could get her down now. Things were finally looking up.

Taylor smiled up at the familiar ceiling, still a bit too keyed up to sleep, already eager for tomorrow. With tonight under her belt– well, helmet, she didn't have a belt yet– there was nothing she couldn't face! She could do it. She could right the wrongs, make this city a better place. With her powers, _what did she have to be afraid of? What could she not face?_

…

Taylor's good mood shattered into billions of shards of glass, each a knife to tear at her heart, to show her the worst of people and the world.

Her father and she were drifting apart. No, worse, she was _pushing_ him away. She didn't trust him to know about her bullies, how bad it was at school, the fact that she had powers. Suing the school looked to be leading to nothing but a settlement to pay for hospital bills, a pittance since they had insurance and so the school would only dish out for the copay, and empty promises of actually doing their dammed jobs.

Her time away from school to recuperate would only last so long, the end of the month at most, and she would need to go back, back to 'learning' in that hellhole of suffering where no one helped her and the people tormented her for no reason. Emma, Sophia, all the girls who'd bullied her would have been waiting for her, and it was unlikely anything had changed.

She'd set fire to parts of the city many times, and even if she managed to do good as Solomon, her arson would always be a cloud hanging over her, a reason for her to be branded a villain. Worse, what if they learned of her others powers, the powers she'd taken one look at and promptly tried to forget, the ones that turned corpses into zombies and worse, that could create an unstoppable plague of the dead who will feed on the living. That would make her beyond a villain, that would make her a threat greater than Nilbog. At least you could _kill_ the things he made. Death would only be the beginning for her creations.

She was no hero, she was a little girl who spent more time making a nice costume and getting out of trouble from playing with her powers to really take the thing she said she wanted to do seriously. She'd gone to the library to do proper research _once_ , when she should have done more, done research on the other parahumans, especially the villains of the city instead of just taking it for granted her powers would let her deal with them, despite already knowing her power could be dangerously powerful and fatal, and she didn't even know what they'd actually do to people if they hit. That woman might have had a concussion when you put her to sleep, and you didn't check. You didn't know how to check, when should have learned how, since you expected to be fighting people. For crying out loud, she literally spent most of the night pretending she was _Legend!_

She was a child in denial and she needed to grow up, seriously face her situation and treat it with the severity it deserves instead of just whining about it and blaming others for her pain because they're not doing anything or she considered their actions to be useless token gestures because they wouldn't fix her problems _right now_ , when the person with the most responsibility to act, herself, was acting like a sad-sack waiting for someone else to notice her and make her problems magically go away without her having to do anything.

Taylor moaned, curling into a ball as the sure and certain knowledge, the little details she'd known but had ignored with the willful ignorance only someone truly intent on deliberate self-deception could achieve, all came together into a whole courtesy of her power, drew the conclusions she'd been ignoring so hard it was a river in Egypt, and dropped them on her head with the force of a Cretaceous-genociding rock from the sky.

Damn it power! How dare you turn traitor _! Why the fuck would you do this?_

…

 _IT WAS A RHETORICAL QUESTION YOU MORON, YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO GET AN ANSWER FOR THOSE!_ What good could possibly come from this… this… _**ARGHH?-!**_

…

 _Seriously?_ 'Because you need to confront your problems and acknowledge them so you can move on and do something about it instead of being stuck in a spiral of self-destruction'? _THAT'S_ your stupid excuse?-! Fuck you power! Fuck you for a fucking traitor! You're no different from Emma! _How is this any different than what she does?_

…

 _ **WHAT DO YOU MEAN THIS IS ALL DENIAL AND SELF-INFLICTED ANGST BECAUSE OF PRIDE?-! DO YOU SEE ANY PRIDE HERE? WHERE'S THE PRIDE?-!**_

 _Taylor lay back on her bed, staring at the ceiling as she smiled, reflecting on the night's events. She felt good. Sure, it was only a small start, but she'd managed to take the first steps to being a hero._

WHAT DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH ANYTHING?

…

SHE WAS _NOT_ TOO PROUD TO TAKE GOOD ADVICE! YOU SHUT UP, YOU'RE JUST… just…

Taylor realized she was arguing with herself. And losing badly.

Her fists clenched. Then with a snarl, she used her own power on herself and escaped into sleep.

Only the first hour of her sleep was pleasant and restful. The rest of the night, she dreamed she was arguing with a mirror. The mirror was winning.

….

 **Topic: New Cape Sighting! Wearing Actual Cape!**  
 **In: Boards ► Capes ► Sightings ► East Coast ► Massachusetts ► Brockton Bay**  
 **BlueAndPiercings** (Original Poster)  
Posted On Jan 22nd 2011:  
So, I was walking home to my girlfriend, minding my own business when I saw a bunch of other people on the street I was on looking up at pointing and the sky. I got out my phone and wouldn't you know it, there was this flying cape. Literally, they had on a cape, a nice red number. Can't actually remember the last time we got someone who actually wore a cape with their costume. These days it's all body armor and helmets. Video here: [link]

So, can anyone identify this one? Did they come out recently and I just haven't heard of them or can I legitimately call first?

Edit: weird, the cape is orange in the video. I distinctly remember it being red.

Edit 2: Okay, others have chimed in to have seen the cape (the person) in a gold cape (the garment). Other have reported red too, and we've had a few oranges like in the video. I think it's safe to call some kind of Tinkertech or Stranger effect.

Edit 3: The cape has officially been recognized as a new hero calling herself Solomon, who might be Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Mormon or Amish. Still no word on why eyewitnesses sometimes see her cape be gold or red. This thread is now locked. The new Solomon discussion thread can be found here: [link]

….

Lisa played the video again. The guys running away wasn't as funny anymore after how many times she'd watched it. Not even the one who'd crapped himself and tripped because of it. She stifled a chortle. Okay, maybe it was still a little funny.

"That the new guy?" Brian said, looking over her shoulder as he passed her to get to the fridge.

"New _girl_ ," Lisa said. "Solomon. Near as I can tell, not really recruitment material. She was smiling the whole time she was talking to them, and was more worried about those three hurting themselves on her. Seriously, from the body language you'd think they were Legend." Lisa chuckled as she repeated the clip. "Hell, she's exactly like Legend."

She focused on the image of the new hero's back, on the orange cape and the falls of dark hair coming from the back of the helmet she wore.

 _Friendly; does not look down on or pity these men. Wants to keep them from making a mistake. Wants to help them in general. Wants to inspire others to be heroes. Was inspired to be a hero. Wants to be a hero. Wants to do good. Wants to use powers to do good. Wants to help people. Wants to protect these men from themselves. Wants to protect them from getting hurt because of her. Genuinely how they behave. Not an act for when in public._

 _Gay; not flaming, just gay. Comfortable in their gayness. Doesn't make a big deal out of being gay. Doesn't advocate her gayness. Won't apologize for being gay. Turned off by redheads. Would find me her type if she were here._

 _Confident; not someone to mess with. Can back it up with powers. Can back it up without powers. Seriously one badass motherfucker. Would not actually fuck mother. Would fuck_ a _mother, if she was willing. Someone I should be scared of. She could take me._

"She's Triumvirate material?" Brian said.

"She's gay," Lisa said, "Like, really gay. There weren't even any women in the video and I could still tell she'd have checked them out," she chortled, "In a complete respectful, discrete and heroic way."

The rest of the video was just lots of shaky-cam. Watch all she would, there was nothing more to be gleaned. She was polite, helpful, attentive, and genuinely didn't see having to walk a drunk guy back to his apartment in the middle of the night just so he wouldn't become a target of opportunity a chore.

Apparently fashion sense wasn't the only thing the new guy was old-fashioned about.

"So, have you figured out what they're powers are yet?" Brian asked.

"Some kind of light-based set," Lisa said. " The first video shows she has invisibility and light generation. And we can probably add flight too, if she's the same person in those videos a few days ago."

"Lasers?" Brian asked, going straight to the logical conclusion.

"No sign of them yet," Lisa said. "She might be a Brute too, but the damage to the door in the later videos aren't really anything a sufficiently strong person couldn't make, especially given how crappy the door was. If she did anything else, no one caught it on camera. The police report mentions her teleporting away from the scene, but that might just have been her using her invisibility to be dramatic."

Brian sighed. "Well, here's hoping I can block them if she _does_ have lasers."

"I'll be right behind you Brian," Lisa said reassuringly.

"Using me as a shield?" he said dryly.

"Of course!"

….

 **\- To be continued…**

….

A/N: Oh, did you think it was crack? Too bad, it's just something I wrote!

Yes, I did in fact roll, just to give Taylor a chance to be screwed by RNG. I must say, I wasn't expecting that bluff roll. Her checks in that scene were: Sense Motive, Bluff (to fake being like Legend), Diplomacy (to make them stop being hostile) and Intimidate (to be one scary motherfucker).

So yeah, Flash of Ominscience is essentially a Thinker power, and that means activating when Taylor asks herself a question (she still needs to learn to actively _stop_ it from answering her, it seems). Downside, it burns Mythic power, although Taylor doesn't really need not horde right now. On the upside, no Thinker headaches! Just the pounding ache of too much information and knowing stuff they wish they didn't. Actually, that might very well be a Thinker headache…

….

 _ **OMAKE!: A Certain Smug Thinker!**_

….

Taylor stared at the girl draped over her balcony railing. As if she had collapsed over the metal rod in exhaustion, the girl had her waist pressed against the rail and her body bent such that her arms and legs were dangling straight down. Her age was about 17 or 18. She looked about a year or two older than Taylor, with long hair that completely covered her upside down head, hiding her face from view.

Her clothes…

"Those… are real tights…"

Yes, they were, in fact, purple and lavender tights.

The girl's lovely fingertips twitched. Her head slowly rose from its hanging position. Her silk-like blonde hair smoothly split to either side like a curtain and the girl's face appeared from between the long, long hair. The girl's face was relatively cute. Her freckled nose and green eyes were a new experience for someone like Taylor, and she seemed somehow like a doll to her.

"I…"

The girl's cute but slightly dried lips slowly moved.

Taylor thoughtlessly took a step or two back.

"I'm hungry."

"…"

And thus was Taylor's life visited with such misfortune.

….

Please review, C&C welcome. BTW, did anyone notice the power that _isn't_ on Taylor's character sheet?

Until next time, this is Shadow, signing off.


	3. Omake! Taylor Sentai! Taylorangers!

And now, a short omake...

* * *

 _The sun of the morning has risen! This is the dawn of a new age! The Hero of Humanity died protecting the smiles of the people, but her legacy has been inherited by these unbelievable children! Born of the hero who saved the worlds, they are the Dawn of the Golden Morning!_

 _Wizard of Evocation! TaylorRed!_

 _Magus of the Black Blade! TaylorBlue!_

 _Astral Eldritch Scrapper! TaylorYellow!_

 _Sacred Attendant Cleric! TaylorPink!_

 _Druid! TaylorGreen!_

 ** _Taylor Sentai! Taylorangers!_**

 _TST-TST-TST-TST-TST_

 **Canon Station 1: The Taylors Appear!**

"Dragon!" Lisa declared. A gold ring shined on her finger. "Contessa has escaped! Recruit a team of teenagers with attitude!"

"We're no longer allowed to do that, Tattletale," Dragon said as she texted Defiant she'd be a little late coming home and he should start tinkering without her.

"Oh, right. Stupid stricter oversight. Very well then, break out the Taylor clones we have Riley Grace Davis growing in the basement!"

TST-TST-TST-TST-TST

 **Canon Station 4: What Are Identical Clone Sisters For?**

"W-what?" TaylorPink gasped. "Another Taylor clone? But there was supposed to be only five of us!"

The little Taylor curtsied stiffly. "Greetings, honored elder sister. I am Taylor 10031, Taylor 10031 says."

oooooooooooooooooooooooo

"No! NO!" TaylorPink cried, dropping to her knees at the small, still form. "Cure Light Wounds! Cure Light Wounds! Why?-! Why aren't her wounds curing?"

TaylorBlue put a hand on her sister's shoulder. "Sister... "

"CURE LIGHT WOUNDS!"

oooooooooooooooooooooooo

"This is… UNFORGIVABLE!" TaylorRed cried. "To use our mother's blood for this foolish experiment! On the blood of our 10031 little sisters, will destroy the Eidolon Level Up Project! _Mo-ru-tenu Orubu!_ "

"Argh!" the the monster cried as molten metal fell on it.

"Now Pink!" TaylorYellow cried. "Finish it!"

"Feel the wrath of the Escalation Force!" the usually gentle TaylorPink cried. " ** _HARM!_** "

TST-TST-TST-TST-TST

 **Canon Station 10: CYOA Game! The Quest For The Taylor's Secret Journal!**

"Grab my hand!" TaylorGreen cried, holding her hand over the cliff at TaylorBlue.

"I can reach it!" TaylorBlue gasped, stretching. She could just reach the book, which had landed on a lower ledge. Just a little more...

"TaylorBlue, take my hand!" TaylorGreen cried.

"No!" TaylorBlue said. "We've come so far! I won't let it be all in vain!" Just a little more... her finger was grazing the cover, even as her other hand began to slip...

"Blue, please!" TaylorGreen gasped.

Almost...

"AZUL!"

oooooooooooooooooooooooo

"You used my name," TaylorBlue said later that night on the roof of the secret base. "We're not supposed to use our names."

"It was important," TaylorGreen said, not sorry. "I don't want to lose my sister. The legends say The Taylor lost her sister to an evil red-headed monster. I don't want that to happen to me too."

"But... the book. The Secret Journal that describes the ascension to ultimate power," TaylorBlue said. "The only record of how The Taylor became the Ultimate Parahuman In The Multiverse..."

"The Secret Journal of The Taylor is in our hearts," TaylorGreen said with a smile. "I'm sure of it."

TST-TST-TST-TST-TST

 **Canon Station 17: The Awesome Silver Girl!**

"With the blessings of the past!" the mysterious girl proclaimed before spinning around and throwing her hands to the sides. "The ancient powers from before The Taylor flows through me! _Duskblade Mystic Theurge Bard!_ I am... _Taaay-loooor SILVER!_ "

TST-TST-TST-TST-TST

 **Canon Station 23: Endbringers Deaths Are The Future of Humanity!**

"You're all probably wondering why I called you here," TaylorYellow said, adjusting her Tattletale-brand deerstalker cap. "Everyone in this mountain hotsprings resort on this private island is a suspect! But I know who did it! I know who stole...The Black Feather of the Simurgh! Did you think you got away with it?" She pointed dramatically. "It was... you!"

Everyone gasped loudly as the most unthinkable person of all rose to glare at the pointing finger.

"I hate that bitch," Contessa said. "And I would have gotten away with it if it weren't for you meddling kids and that Thinker-blocking feather!"

TST-TST-TST-TST-TST

 **Canon Station 29: Gasp! Lisa's Actually Having A Wedding?**

"Taylor!" Lisa gasped. A gold ring shined on her finger. "Is it really you?"

Taylor smiled. "Yes, my dear Lisa. I have inexplicably survived my unexplainable death and am here to make an honest woman of you. Lisa, will you marry me?"

oooooooooooooooooooooooo

"Curses!" the now unmasked enemy proclaimed. "To think you managed to foil my plan!"

Lisa gasped. A gold ring shined on her finger. "Coil!"

"No!" the smaller, thinner, shorter man dressed in black with a white snake motif said. "I am Coil Junior! You killed my father! Prepare to die!"

"How dare you," Lisa snarled, shaking with rage a she stood in her pure white, beautiful wedding dress. A gold ring shined on her finger. "To use a TaylorClone like this... to play with a young maiden's heart. For this, I will unleash the forbidden power I sealed away long ago!"

Dragon gasped. "No Lisa! It's too dangerous! You might die!"

But it was too late. Lisa had already pulled out a lavender mask from behind her back and raised it to her face. "UnderChange!" There was a flash of purple light, and there stood a hero out of legend. A gold ring shined on her finger. "The Lavender Fox! TattleRanger!"

The Undersiders theme music from several seasons ago began to play as the legendary TattleRanger pulled out her gun and shot Coil Junior in the head.

"No!" Coil Junior said, flailing around despite half his head blown off. "How can this be! Father, I've failed you." Then he finally fell on his back and exploded.

oooooooooooooooooooooooo

"I'm sorry," Dragon said.

"So am I," Lisa said as she put away her mask once more. A gold ring shined on her finger. "But this means I made the right decision all those years before. They must never know that they're not really TaylorClones. They must never know they are, in fact, secretly born from my and Taylor's DNA. They must never know that I am, in fact, their mother!"

From where she was coincidentally hidden because she'd been taking a walk, TaylorSilver gasped!

TST-TST-TST-TST-TST

 **Canon Station 37: The Strongest Fighting Machine! Dragon's New Swimsuit!**

"And the winner of the New Brockton Bay Swimsuit Competion is..." Mayor Christner Junior opened the envelope. "Dragon!"

"Oh my," Dragon said demurely as her husband activated his DefiCheer automated cheering system.

TST-TST-TST-TST-TST

 **Canon Station 40: The Future Is In The Past! The Return of Solomon!**

Everyone gasped as they saw the figure who strode out of the smoke. That intimidating height, that distinctive helmet, that cape that changed colors, that Legend-like aura of gayness! It could only be...

"Taylor?-!" Lisa cried, raising a hand as if to touch her lost love.

The figure raised a hand and a ball of fire came into being. "Where the fuck am I and how do you know that name?" Taylor Hebert from January 31, 2011 said suspiciously.

TST-TST-TST-TST-TST

 **Canon Station 44: Jailbreak! Rescue Santa Claus From The New Birdcage!**

"Ho ho ho!" Santa Claus said as he easily evaded the enemies attacks.

"Impossible!" Contessa Junior cried. "He's invisible to my Path Of Better Victory, With Added Endbringer Support! How can this be? This is Impossible!"

"Ho ho ho," Santa said. "I am Santa Claus! As Eidolon was the ultimate Trump, as you are the ultimate Thinker, I am the ultimate Mover and ultimate Stranger! I know when you are sleeping! I know when you're awake! I know when you've been bad or good! And you have been a very bad girl Contessa Junior!"

"My mommy never loved me!" Contessa Junior cried. "She was always too busy working!"

"Taylorangers!" Santa Claus cried as the Taylorangers managed to find their second wind and get back on their feet. "Use my power! Become... Power Taylorangers!"

TST-TST-TST-TST-TST

 **Canon Station 48: Fated Decisive Final Ultimate Legendary Mythic Rider Ultra Metal Cure Battle! Endbringer Tarrasque!**

"It's here," Lisa said with quiet dread. A gold ring shined on her finger. "The 21st Endbringer, as foretold in the CYOA Diagram in the Secret Journal. The one who will awaken all Endbringers and usher about the True End Of Humanity: Tarrasque The Unnerfable!"

"It doesn't matter," TaylorRed said, full of heroic determination. "Even if it means we'll die, we must still fight it. To do otherwise… is unforgivable!"

"We've come so far. I won't let it all be in vain," TaylorBlue declared.

"Does it think it can get away with this?" TaylorYellow, putting on her hat.

"It will feel the wrath of the Escalation Force," TaylorPink said with steely resolve.

"Victory is in our hearts," TaylorGreen said. "I'm sure of it!"

"The ancient powers from before The Taylor flows through me," TaylorSilver said. "It's a supermega win!"

They called the giant MegaLisa robot that they've definitely had since the first episode. "Come forth, DaiTaylorOh!"

oooooooooooooooooooooooo

"It's too strong!" TaylorYellow said.

"Shields are down! The damage is too much!" TaylorBlue reported.

"We're not going to make it!" TaylorGreen cried.

"Damn it… is this the end? This is unforgivable!" TaylorRed swore

"Damn it! Kill it! Kill it! Kill that– " TaylorPink swore, an explosion covering up the last of her words.

"Everyone... I'm glad to have met you... my big sisters," TaylorSilver said as she closed her eyes for what might be the last time.

"Don't give up!" a young voice cried from seemingly nowhere.

Darkness came over them. There was silence. Nothingness.

TST-TST-TST-TST-TST

 **Canon Station 49: A New Taylor Appears! Return of the Taylorangers!**

"Are we dead?" TaylorYellow asked.

"No," a young voice said. "You are in the realm of the dead. The Negative Energy Plain, Taylor 10031 says."

The Taylorangers turned around. TaylorPink gasped. "Taylor 10031! But you're dead!"

The little Taylor curtsied stiffly. "Greetings, honored elder sisters. We are here to help, Taylor 10031 says."

"We?" TaylorGreen said

From behind the little Taylor came shadows. More and more little Taylors, as far as the eye can see.

"The victims of the Eidolon Level Up Project," TaylorYellow realized.

"Yes, Taylor 10031 says," Taylor 10031 said. "We came to help, Taylor 10031 continued." She held up a familiar book.

TaylorBlue gasped. "The Taylor's Secret Journal," she said. "The record of how The Taylor became the Ultimate Parahuman In The Multiverse."

"Yes. When it burned, the knowledge within it died. It came here, where we read it. We know how it was done. But it can only be done once, Taylor 10031 says," Taylor 10031 said. "For months, we've followed the directions in the journal. Name calling. Teasing. Vicious emails. Today, we took the final step! We put Taylor 10032 in a locker filled with used tampons that's been stewing for over a week! We can feel her power! You need to join her! Only together can you defeat Tarrasque The Unnerfable, Taylor 10031 says!"

The wave of dead Taylors swept over them, carrying them with it back into the light.

The darkness receded, and suddenly, there were 7 people in the giant robot cockpit.

"Taylor 10032?" TaylorPink said. "Is that really you?"

"Yes, but no longer," said the girl who smelled like she'd just come out of a locker full of human waste. "I now possess the Escalation Force! Synthesist Summoner! TaylorBlack! By the power of 10031 dead Taylors, I summon the Eidolon of Escalated Death! DaiNecroOh!"

oooooooooooooooooooooooo

"So, you have defeated my minions," the really little girl said, sitting ominously on her office chair.

"Contessa Junior?" Taylor Silver gasped. "But we banished you to the Eternal Fairy Tea Party!"

"Hee hee hee," their final enemy cried. "Don't mistake me for that fool. I am Contessa Junior Junior, and I have been using my Path Of Best Victory all this time to manipulate you!"

TST-TST-TST-TST-TST

 **Canon Station 51: Farewell Taylorangers!**

"No! How can this be!" Contessa Junior Junior cried as she was finally defeated. "This is impossible!"

"Something my Taylor left to us," Lisa said as she came out of nowhere. A gold ring shined on her finger. "You see this ring that I've been wearing all this time? It's my Taylor's magic ring of invisibility. I've kept it all this time for just such an occasion!"

"Curses!" Contessa Junior Junior cried. "My Path Of Best Victory could see Endbringers, but not magic rings! Then I have no choice! I must become... CONTESSA JUNIOR JUNIOR FINAL FORM!

oooooooooooooooooooooooo

"This is... UNFORGIVABLE! The Wizard of Evocation! TaylorRed!"

"We've come so far! I won't let it all be in vain! Magus of the Black Blade! TaylorBlue!"

"Did it think you could get away with this? Astral Eldritch Scrapper! TaylorYellow!"

"You will feel the wrath of the Escalation Force! Sacred Attendant Cleric! TaylorPink!"

"Victory is in our hearts! I'm sure of it! Druid! TaylorGreen!"

"The ancient powers from before The Taylor flows through me! Duskblade Mystic Theurge Bard! Taaay-loooor SILVER!"

"I am the power of 10031 dead Taylors! Synthesist Summoner! TaylorBlack!"

"Argh! No!" Contessa Junior Junior Final Form cried as the combined powers of the 7 Taylorangers proved impossible even for the Path of Best Victory. "But don't think this means you've won! I am just the first general! There are three other Junior Junior Generals, and I am but the weakest!"

"It doesn't matter!" TaylorRed said.

"We are eternal!" TaylorBlue continued.

"As long as your kind exist, we will never die!" TaylorYellow declared.

"For as long as there is evil," TaylorPink snarled.

"For as long as villains exist," TaylorGreen said.

"For as long as humanity is threatened by monsters," TaylorSilver shone.

"THERE WILL ALWAYS BE A TAYLOR TO STAND AGAINST THEM!" TaylorBlack roared in the voices of 10031 dead little girls screaming for the souls of the damned.

Darkness came over Contessa Junior Junior. There was silence. Nothingness.

oooooooooooooooooooooooo

"Scarlet, what have I told you about getting into fights at school?"

"But mom! What they did... was unforgivable!"

"Yeah!"

"Pinkanema, stop goading your sister."

"Yes mom..."

"Azul, can you and Berry get dinner started?"

"Sure mom."

"Where are Argento and Kuro, mom?"

"Oh, they went to help your aunt Dragon with something."

oooooooooooooooooooooooo

"Aunt Dragon, what are these?" the little girl asked in the voice of 10031 vengeful souls.

"Oh, those are my latest inventions. I call them… the Taylo-Driver and Acceptaylor."

TST-TST-TST-TST-TST

 **END?**


	4. Attempting Optimization

Toaru Majutsu no Taylor-chan: A Certain Mythic Archmage

by Shadow Crystal Mage

Chapter 3: Attempting Optimization

Disclaimer: Worm created by Wildbow. Pathfinder by Paizo. All hail Gygax!

….

 _January 26_ _th_ _, 2011_

One morning, as Taylor Hebert was waking up from anxious dreams, she discovered that in her bed she had not been changed into a monstrous verminous worm.

Given how she felt after said anxious dreams, however, she would almost have preferred if she had, since it would have been a problem she could simply solve by a simple use of power. At least, she was reasonably sure. She'd have checked, but she was still mad at her power for being a bitch right now, and was not going to give it the satisfaction

It is utterly galling to lose an argument with yourself.

It's even worse when it was one you were trying to _win_.

That, however, had nothing on the fact that, in the cold light of morning, with no time to rationalize the pure data, it was obvious she lost the argument with herself because she was _right_

…

That was a very confusing sentence.

Taylor closed her eyes, groaned, and turned to look at the alarm clock next to the glasses she didn't need anymore. Not a full eight hours. She'd need to nap then. Say what you will about her power, it liked its eight hour beauty sleep and stuck to a routine, or else its power wouldn't recharge. It was weird like that. She could hear her dad downstairs, much more clearly than she would have before.

For a moment, she hesitated.

 _It was only a small start, but she'd managed to take the first steps to being a hero._

A hero does the right thing, even if it's hard. A hero was brave. It wasn't the first step that mattered. It was the _next_ step.

For one wild moment, she wondered what Legend would do… then squashed the thought. This wasn't Legend's dad. This was Taylor Hebert's dad, and he deserved to have _her_ talk to him.

Taking a deep breath, Taylor got up and headed downstairs.

Her dad looked up as she padded down the stairs, deliberately making noise on the steps as she went. She wasn't going to give herself an opening to change her mind and sneak away. "Taylor! You're up! I hope I didn't wake you?"

Taylor shook her head. "No, I was getting up away."

"Oh," her dad said.

Awkwardness descended.

"Um, take care at work," Taylor said.

Her dad nodded. "Yeah. Uh… "

Taylor shifted on her feet, then stepped forward before she lost her nerve and gave her dad a hug. Her dad was startled, then awkwardly returned it, patting her back. They stood like that for a few seconds, then awkwardly stepped back. Taylor stood there as her dad left for work. Eventually, she sat down at the table and let her head thunk against the wood.

Okay, that was a step. Half a step, at least. No one ever said it had to be a big seven league step, did they?

She was pathetic.

After a moment, she went back to bed to get enough rest to satisfy her power.

….

Putting down her relationship with her dad as a work in progress, Taylor decided to tackle the other, unfortunately relevant points her power had annoying brought up. Research and proper preparation. To that end, she went back to the library and began to research the major villains of the city, the ones she was most likely to encounter.

About an hour later, she shut off the tabs and tried not to whimper at some of the powers she'd read. She'd heard that Lung (pronounced with a long sound, like 'look') turned into a dragon and got stronger over time, but the stuff she'd found included stuff like hot his flames got, how tough his scales were, _how he'd been struck by rocket launchers to the_ _ **face**_ _and hadn't stopped._ Kaiser could theoretically make a sword appear from _inside_ her helmet and stab into her head, which probably explains why so many heroes don't wear helmets in this town. Purity was a Legend Package, with the bowels-voiding level of possible destruction that hinted at. Hookwolf was like something out of Grimm's fairy tales– the originals, not the cleaned up versions– except he'd probably been kicked out by the fairies for excessive violence and too much cold iron.

However, it was Victor she found absolutely terrifying. Her power, when she came to think about it, came with a lot of skills just dumped in her head. How to throw a knife, how to make weapons and armor, how to push reality roughly against the wall and… treat it in a completely heroic and mutually safe, sane and consensual way (Conan the Barbarian was a literary hero! That counts as heroic!). If he could just take that away from her by loitering nearby… worse, use it against her…

(… _she wouldn't be special anymore…_ )

She carefully memorized a description of Victor and resolved to stay as far from him as possible and take him out first.

…

Take him _down_ first. _Down_! Not out! She was a hero, heroes didn't do that! That was totally a non-Freudian slip.

She compiled the list of descriptions and powers, taking care to memorized them. All the major groups in the city. Empire, ABB, Merchants, Faultline's Crew (and wow, talk about egotistical. Even Kaiser and Lung hadn't named their groups after themselves), Undersiders, Über and Leet, Circus… the only ones she couldn't find any exact information for was Coil and… a mysterious suspected pyrokinetic arsonist that the PRT were calling Orthinus.

…

Damn, that would have been a good name for her to use if she'd thought about it.

Taylor took a moment to check again that she did not have any fire-starting or, now that she'd thought about it, rainbow-colored powers at hand. She tucked away her notes on what would surely be her new nightmares, then began a second set, intent on researching exactly what a budding heroine out to make a name for herself needed to know and do.

…

…

…

WOW those were some depressing statistics. Seriously? That many died? No wonder this city was such a hole.

Beyond those, there were some shady-looking websites that claimed to be guides on how to be a vigilante. Most of them were suspicious as hell, and others were blocked by the library's computer, but a few she could access looked helpful. She took notes on the needs for restraint and suggestions on what to use (so glad to avoid another rookie mistake, so lucky it wasn't needed last night), the advisability of bringing a flashlight, the need for weapons, how bandages are a good idea, the cheapest disposable cell phones, the uses of spare change, why gloves are a good idea, the need to stay in shape, why you shouldn't wear a cape (Rest In Peace Stratogal)…

…

Yeah…

No, she was not going to compromise on her cape! Cloak, whatever!

Still, there were a lot of good points. While her powers could be used for enough of it if need be, it was probably a good idea not to rely on that. Her powers had limited uses per day, after all. Still, it looked like some kind of utility belt was definitely needed. She'd need more time to build in addition to the time she'd need resting to recharge her powers. That would take time away from heroing…

But hadn't she decided she needed to do this right?

That meant proper preparation. That meant time spent preparing.

It was time to make her pocket dimension more than just someplace to make stuff.

…

After she got some magnets.

….

Magnets were bought. So were zipties, duct tape, bandages, some art supplies, and some small refillable drink bottles, which pretty much wiped out all her money until her next allowance. Self-sufficiency it was until she figured out how to make money or something.

It was mid-afternoon by the time she got back home. From there, she opened a gate to her workshop.

When she'd first made her pocket dimension, it had been flat and featureless, with a smooth wooden floor. The walls and ceiling were the same, essentially putting her in wooden box. It had been brightly lit despite no apparent source of light, and she'd eventually stopped trying to figure _that_ out. It had been before she'd resigned herself to the fact her powers were arbitrary and bullshit. Thirty feet high, forty feet wide and fifty feet long, it hadn't exactly been cramped. Her forge, hammers, tongs, grippers and other assorted tools were in one corner, next to a huge pile of scrap metal that had once been three boats in the Boat Graveyard. Well, piles of cubes and ingots that used to be scrap metal, anyway. Her fabricating power was so helpful. Another piles contained random materials she hadn't been able to use yet. There was lots of silk from cannibalized bodysuits, some rubber and fibers from shoes and clothes, bits of acrylic…

She put her new purchases down next to the non-metal misc. pile and surveyed the place. What she needed was time. Time to work on her gear, time to rest after a night of heroing…

She nodded and reached towards a 10th tier power so she could press reality roughly against the wall and… treat it in a safe, sane and consensual heroic manner.

Conan the Barbarian and Herakles were heroes, after all. So was James Bond.

Yup, she was going to heroic the hero out of reality!

A use of her 10th tier pocket dimension power let her double the flow of time in it in relation to the real world. Then she did it again, putting her at four times normal time. That meant if she worked and slept in here, she'd be able to do her building and resting in only 4 hours.

She gave that another thought, than used her power one more time.

Eight times normal time. Everything done in 2 hours. She considered doing it one more time, but she might need the charges for her high-tier emulator power later. Still, now she'd have plenty of time to make stuff.

Using her power to make some leather armor and enhancing its quality, she began to gut it for the raw materials for her belt…

It would be ten days before her belt would be ready, even with the time acceleration in her workshop. After all, despite making it to work and sleep in, she still had to repair her relationship with her dad and be heroic (er, the 'help her fellow man' kind of heroic, not the 'Conan, Herakles and James Bond' kind of heroic), and that meant being out and about. Still, simple belt pouches to carry the stuff she'd brought to wear on a regular non-power-infused belt were simple enough and took no time at all, so she was slightly more prepared going out this time!

But first!

When Danny Herbert arrived home from a long, stressful day of being a responsible adult, he found his daughter waiting for him with dinner ready. Her smile was awkward, and he wondered if some kind of shoe– or more likely an anvil– was about to drop. But no, she made him dinner, she asked him about his day, she told him about going to the library. After that they sat together and watched something on TV.

Enough small steps will get you as far as seven leagues eventually.

….

Her father was now asleep. It was time to be heroic again and try not to think about the fact she still had made no headway or even begun to think about how to improve her situation at school. Small steps!

After putting on her armor and using her helmet to alter her face again, she went invisible with her ring and teleported out to the city, in the same general area as the night before. It was time to fight crime again!

…

Oh right, she still hadn't solved the actual problem of how to find those.

Briefly, Taylor contemplated trying to just find Kaiser or Lung, attack them straight out and then hand them over to the PRT. It wouldn't even be that hard actually. And it was late enough that she wouldn't have to worry about catching them in the shower…

Wait, no, if she was going to do that, she might as well take care of the one she was _really_ worried about. Find Victor, take ou– _down!_ Take _down_ Victor. Unlike Kaiser, Victor couldn't make her own helmet stab her, and she'd be far enough away he wouldn't hit her with his guns, as opposed to high-impact bigass swords. Really, how was that _not_ a good idea?

…

Oh, there you are, you treacherous power. Still not learned the definition of a rhetorical question, have we? And she was _not_ more afraid of Sophia and Emma than she was of a group of violent parahumans large enough to form a gang even without all the minions! It's not like she could use her powers on those two! Well, she _could_ but… oh, you shut up!

Muttering to herself about treacherous powers making sense, Taylor opted to shelve that for now. For one thing, she wasn't sure about how to go about it without killing anyone. After all, most of her powers went from 'barely effective non-lethal take-down' straight to 'instant death', when they weren't 'weirdly limited utility'. And killing people was sort of a heroic no-no nowadays. This wasn't the days of the Greek gods or the Hyborian age where heroes could kill left, right and center and all that would happen was you'd get a new vase painted in your image, after all.

Yeah, best leave thinking about that for tomorrow. Be heroic (in a non-Herakles, -Conan or -Bond way) _now_.

A day hadn't improved the area, though there were a bit more people. Probably due to proximity to apartments. For a moment, she wondered if Tim was all right. Was someone taking care of him? Maybe she should check…

Taylor shook her head. She could check after she got back home. For now, she needed to keep her powers ready in case… well, general 'in-case'-ness.

She activated her flight power, lifting off.

Now moving at a fairly good clip, she flew off, trying to notice everything around her and hope she noticed the right thing… **[1d20+20! 24!] vs [1d20+7! 19!]**

Like that shadow moving huddled on the roof of that building over there.

Scarcely daring to hope, Taylor tried to sneak over above the shape (and was momentarily faced with the conundrum of how exactly one sneaked while floating in midair). **[1d20+23+20! 49] vs [1d20+1! 26!]** Luckily being invisible was _very_ helpful.

Once she got closer though, Taylor felt herself deflate slightly. Oh, it was just that Ward, Shadow Stalker. No one to deal with, then. Although… didn't the wards patrol in pairs? Yes, that was definitely something she remembered from her research yesterday, how they went by the buddy system. Had something happened to her partner? Was this a rescue? She tried to push down the feeling of voyeurism.

Making sure to remain twenty feet above the hero, Taylor angled herself to see what she was looking at. Three men were talking in the alley. Grayish smoke rose from two of them, and she saw the barely orange-tinged white spots of lit cigarettes. What was weird about three guys smoking?

One guy casually leaned sideways, and if she hadn't been flying right over them she would have missed it. Money changed hands, then a small bag of something went the other way.

There was a low snap as a crossbow loosed.

One of the men went down with a brief flash, jerking randomly on the ground. The one closer to the mouth of the alley swore and tried to run, and Shadow Stalker was on him instantly, leaping down from the roof in a way that even had Taylor gasping at the height. Halfway down, her body changed, seemingly becoming a cloud of darkness before reforming and hitting him boots first on the back. Taylor winced at the crack, then winced again at the rather vicious punch to the back of the head. The man went down.

The remaining man had started backing away, drawing a switchblade from his pocket. He obviously knew that the alley was a dead end, as Taylor could see from where she hovered, now much lower to follow the action. Gah! How had Shadow Stalker noticed this and Taylor hadn't?

What followed was a brief interlude in swift but inelegant brutality that ended with the man's arm dislocated and Shadow Stalker kicking him while he was down.

…

That seemed unnecessarily violent, oh and now she's picking him up and slamming him against a wall by his collar. Okay, she should probably get involved now.

Taylor let herself float down behind Shadow Stalker as she… shoved her crossbow under his jaw and demanded he tell her who his supplier was. Said crossbow, was unloaded, thankfully. A bluff then. From his angle, he can't tell it's not loaded.

And now Shadow Stalker was loading it. Okay, enough was enough.

With her telekinesis, Taylor plucked the bolt out of the arrow groove and floated it to her hand as she dropped her invisibility. "I believe this is getting out of hand, miss," she said in her most Legend-y voice. And if it was a bit stern and intimidating, well she meant it to be. Legend obviously wouldn't allow this kind of thing to happen on his watch. **[1d20+21! 39!]vs[1d20+6! 7!] [1d20+21! 29!]vs[10]**

To her credit, Shadow Stalker had spun away and was standing five feet somewhere else by the time Taylor was midway through her sentence. She'd also shot the now-empty crossbow, apparently out of instinct. Her reloading was smooth and experienced and Taylor would have appreciated it a lot more if it wasn't pointed at her. "Who the fuck are you?"

"I'm Solomon," Taylor said, inclining her head slightly. "And these men need medical attention." She pointedly floated up the bolt and offered it to Shadow Stalker tail first.

 **[1d20+10! 25!]** From the pause and the body language, Taylor was reasonably sure the other girl scowled at her, plucking the length out of the air. The crossbow dipped downward, however. "Oh. You're the new girl scout." Taylor twitched at the dismissive tone.

"Hardly. I don't have nearly as much distinguished service in my history," Taylor said flatly.

That got a snort, and Shadow Stalker reached towards her mask, speaking in low tones. That didn't help much , as Taylor managed to hear every word anyway. "Console, one dealer and two of his customers taken down."

" _Acknowledged,"_ a smaller, tinnier voice answered. _"And where's your partner? Aren't you supposed to be with Clockblocker?"_

"He fell behind," Shadow Stalker said as Taylor moved to stand in front of the last man, who'd been inching towards his dropped knife. He stopped when it floated up and began dancing in the air around Taylor's head.

"Please stay down sir," she said politely. It was definitely polite, despite how she was grinding her teeth slightly. He seemed to twitch and lay still after that, studiously staring down at the ground. "Thank you."

When she glanced back, Shadow Stalker was giving their location, sounding grudging. "Yeah, yeah, I'll wait for 'em. They better get here quick, though."

" _Acknowledged. Don't forget to– "_

"I said I got it!" she snapped, loud enough that Taylor didn't even have to concentrate on that. Taking her finger off the button, Shadow Stalker stomped past Taylor warily, before grabbing the fallen man, who let out a sniffled yelp of pain, and securing her arms with zipties– Taylor was mildly pleased to note they seemed to be the same kind as the ones she'd brought. Good, she'd been worried they'd be too small– before heading towards the man she felled when he ran. After a quick but cursory check, she left him where he was.

Finally, she faced Taylor, her body language wary, and Taylor realized she was still floating the knife. Gently, she set it down between them.

The silence that descended awkward and try as she might, Taylor couldn't think of how Legend would have deal with an awkward silence except for an equally awkward subject change. Clearly, her imagination had limits.

"So, you wanna join the Wards?" Shadow Stalker said abruptly.

Part of Taylor was very thankful she hadn't needed to be the one to awkwardly change the subject. "I'm not really thinking of doing so at this time."

"Oh, you really should, it's great!" Shadow Stalker said brightly. Too brightly. "You get to hang out, fill all _sorts_ of paperwork, have big brother watching you like a hawk all the time…"

Taylor blinked. "Are you trying to be sarcastic, or just using reverse psychology on me?" she said. Legend was currently failing her, as she couldn't imagine anything but another awkward subject change. "Because both don't seem to be working."

Here was a pause that Taylor was beginning to associate with Shadow Stalker making a face. Briefly, she thought it a pity the other girl had a full face mask. Given how much time she spent on it, the girl must make some _really_ interesting faces. "Well, I tried. So that's a no then?"

That put her back on firmer ground. "That is a 'no' for now," Taylor said. "I do not yet wish to enlist as a member of the Wards for personal reasons– " like not wanting to put herself under the power of yet _another_ government institution "– though that may change in future. If it does, I assure you that the Wards will be the second to know."

A shorter pause, and what sounded like a snort. "Second?"

"Some decisions you don't make alone," Taylor said, radiating heroic responsibility.

The snort was much louder this time. Taylor wasn't offended. Sometimes she couldn't believe the stuff coming out of her mouth when she was like this either.

 **[1d20+21!]** "I must say, I'm impressed with by how quickly you spotted those men," Taylor said, trying to fish for tips. It wasn't lying if she was honestly impressed, right? "How did you do it?" She tried for a conversational air, like she already knew how but was interested in Shadow Stalker's methodology.

Shadow Stalker shrugged, the first expressive move to happen below the neck. "I busted one of the guys who buys from them last week. Been keeping an eye on this stop since." A face pause. "Even caught your walk of shame last night. Didn't recognize you because your cape changed color. See, there it is again, it turned red."

Her cloak? Oh right, Taylor vaguely recalled something like that when she made her dye. It was just on the tip of her tongue, annoyingly out of reach, and she didn't want to use her flash of omniscience to make it easier, still mad at it. "There is nothing shameful in helping your fellow man."

Almost a snort, barely suppressed, and what might or might not be a face pause. "You sure you're not already a Ward?"

And what does one say to that? "Thank you for the complement."

The sound on oncoming police cars made them both look towards the mouth.

" _Aaand_ I'm out of here, _"_ Shadow Stalker said, turning transparent and drifting upwards. "So long, girl scout."

Taylor watched the ward climb away even as the sounds of police cars got closer, finally letting go of the neutral, friendly smile beneath her mask. After all, people could hear that sort of thing, and while Legend might have been willing to drown, Taylor didn't have any sort of moral authority to stand on.

She did _not_ like that one. Her every move was like sand paper, rough and grinding and rubbing raw. She'd heard of police brutality. Had she ever heard of hero brutality?

Well, Conan the Barbarian and Herakles _are_ counted as heroes…

"Well, well," a familiar voice said. The police car sounds had come to a stop. "We meet again."

Taylor turned, and this time the smile under her mask was more genuine. "Hello, Officer Fite. How has your evening been?"

"No one's puked yet, so not bad," the large man said. "This you?"

Taylor shook her head. "No, I was only around for the end. This was all Shadow Stalker."

An interesting expression came over him. "Oh. The edgy chick," he said, his voice carefully neutral.

"Yes," Taylor said, carefully mimicking the neutrality exactly. "The edgy chick."

The officer sighed as he drew out a notepad while other officers began to secure the prisoners. "Well, tell me what happened. Start at the beginning please."

….

Taylor had never seen drugs before today.

"Huh," Taylor said, moving the lights floating around her a little farther up so they didn't make it looked washed out. "I thought it would look… different."

"That's the street stuff," Fite said, merely quirking an eyebrow at the fact that a small baggie of drugs was floating completely unsupported in midair, turning this way and that at Taylor's whims. "The kind they call crack is like rocks. Kinda pink too."

"Does it have a smell? Anything I can watch out for?" Taylor said, floating it back to be bagged as evidence. Hey, they'd asked her not to touch it, she hadn't touched it. No contamination.

"Kinda sweet and flowery? Something like that," Fite said. "It's not like we can let you take a sniff."

"Yeah, my helmet kinda gets in the way," Taylor said, nodding seriously. Fite smiled.

She examined the other kinds of drugs the officers had found, taking note to memorize the colors and shapes. The police had been surprisingly accommodating when she had very politely asked if they'd help her recognize what she should look for. They didn't let her touch anything, but they showed her the seized drugs and explained what they were as they were tagging them as evidence. It was all Taylor needed.

A sample.

After the police had finished arresting the men and documenting everything. They'd taken their leave of one another, officer Fite had given her his card, and Taylor had made a point of drifting some ways away from them before trying out her next power.

Focusing on the memory of what it had looked like, clearly visualizing the object she'd just seen, Taylor activated a 3rd tier power to locate the nearest cocaine.

…

Taylor suddenly realized the difficulty inherent in her plan. It could only pinpoint the nearest instance of said item. Not _every_ instance of said item, not the largest concentration of said item, the _nearest_ instance, no matter the amount.

This… might take a while.

…

She'd need to do more research.

….

 _January 27_ _th_ _, 2011_

"Morning, dad!"

But first, very important things.

….

After getting the very important thing done, spending an (objective) hour in her workshop working on her belt, two more to create another pocket dimension, and then opening a permanent portal from her time-accelerated workshop to her new non-accelerated dimension to store perishables and stuff that might not deal well with being left alone for weeks at a time thanks to the time difference (thankfully she noticed), Taylor went to the library to figure out where Merchant territory was.

…

It was kind of depressing that someone of the internet made a map that gave daily updates as to the current disposition of gang territory in the city. It was exasperating that apparently the attached forum was filled with E88, ABB and Merchants pissing on each other about who had more territory that week or complaining about being misrepresented, because they _clearly_ held that part of the map you fuckers!

She drummed fingers for a moment, than with a twinge of self-conscious guilty pleasure, went to PHO to see if there was some kind of reaction to her debut.

…

It appeared she owed Shadow Stalker an apology. Apparently _everyone_ was calling her a girl scout. Really, what was wrong about being nice?

…

A light manipulator? Well, she supposed given the powers she'd shown so far, that wasn't an inaccurate assumption for what she could do. Hmm, they mentioned her telekinesis, but some people were already explaining that away as some kind of infrared or ultraviolet hardlight construct. Wow, people could really technobabble their way to a theme, huh? Well, at least no one suspected her of any fires.

…

Why were there so many arguments about the color of her cape? It was gold, damn it! And… had that many people really seen her without her noticing?

…

Creepy…

Resisting the urge to look around for people noticing her, she packed up, walking outside to the not-all-clear, not-really-that-sunny day, stepping quietly being some pillars to break line of sight before activating her ring with a murmur. Then she reached inside and grasped a 10th tier power. From deeper within, she drew out three charges of power. It was a strong, constantly shifting power, with many uses. Most of the time, she used it to gain a flash of omniscience.

Now she used it to stop time.

All sound disappeared. Things hung in the air, unmoving. The wind died like a hot summer day, and she was suddenly thankful it wasn't all that clear and sunny. With a thought, her glasses changed back to her helmet as she clothes shifted into her armor. Her cape was pulled from a bag buried deep in her backpack. Booting up her flight power, she checked her map one more time and flew into the heart of Merchant territory.

If she understood it right, supercharged as it was her power allowed her to stay in this timeless place for 20 hours, and she needed all that time. Doing a power-assisted survey of an area for drugs, even if she knew roughly where to look, was time-consuming, and there were a lot of false positives. She supposed people having drugs in a territory held by a gang who were known for drugs shouldn't have been a surprise, but it was an annoying distraction. Still, 20 hours was a long time, and it was a nice day to be outside and fly around, lack of wind notwithstanding. She got a lot done.

She even had time to go home and take a nap. Twenty hours awake can be tiring.

….

"Hey, dad. How was work?"

….

After important things were done, and her father had gone to sleep, she once more stepped out of the house. Fortunately, her rest had been enough to recharge her powers, so she had no trouble stopping time again. There would be no more wasting time looking around and not doing anything.

Taylor strode into the police station, double-checking the address on the Card, and after some wandering found her friend officer Fite. She gently taped a copy of her map to the side of the coffee cup in his hands, along with a small note, and left.

There had been nine large stashes of drugs in merchant territory. Granted, large was relative, the amount of drugs would barely have filled two backpacks. The stashes had varied from abandoned buildings, a junked buss, and in one instance an apartment. In the timeless moment, Taylor visited them all and struck.

In the timeless space, she filled the buildings with webs, making sure everyone inside was entangled, then made sure there weren't any open fires. The people that had lighters, she used bolts of webs to cover their hands so they couldn't reach into their pockets. The apartment was the most difficult. Eventually she decided to just seal the doors with a second tier power, then used her mostly useless synthesis power to fill the hallways outside with (fake) blood. That ought to get their attention.

As to the last…

It was a warehouse, of the properly abandoned, villainous sort. Taylor went through a broken upper window, climbing carefully lest she get her cloak snagged in the glass, and crept down the halls downward. The drugs, she knew, was secured in a locked room, but that didn't mean the rest of the place was unoccupied.

The warehouse was filled with merchants.

Taylor held her breath, not wanting to breathe in the stink. Once had been enough. She also tried her best to ignore those frozen in the act of shooting up, snorting up, puking out and… other physical acts of hedonistic abandon as she looked for her target. She found the woman who matched the pictures and descriptions of Squealer, frozen in what might have been mid-laugh. A little looking found the pink-skinned form of Mush, and Taylor didn't take the time to linger on the details of the two girls and a fat man on top of him. Look as she might, however, their leader, Skidmark, was nowhere in evidence.

She eventually used a power to track him down and found him in the toilet. She was VERY thankful she could hold her breath indefinitely. She drew on a 4th tier power and powered it up, putting him in a deep slumber for 20 hours. Best not to see how good a leader he was. She closed the door, then slowly used a 1st tier power to write "Skidmark Inside Here. Do Not Breath". Then she gave it some consideration and did the same to Squealer and Mush.

That done, she began to steps to capture everyone else.

She found an unattended phone and typed in the PRT's number as she judged the area. Webs were deployed to tangle and she carefully drenched any and all open sources of flame to keep any fires from happening. She also cut power to the building by the simple expedient of going outside and cutting the big wire feeding into the warehouse that was obviously not up to code, though using her disintegrator beam might have been a bit overkill. Still, no fire, and that's what counted.

Then she waited outside and dismissed the timestop.

Even from outside, she heard the cries and exclamation as people suddenly found themselves held in place by webs as she used her pilfered phone to place a call. "Hello… yes, I'd just like to report I've captured Skidmark, Squealer, Mush and a large number of Merchants and drugs? … Solomon… no, it's not just Jewish, it's also Christian, Islamic, Amish, and Mormon… all right, the address is–"

….

Velocity was the first member of the Protectorate to arrive as Taylor caught a straggler who had come upto the warehouse, taken a look inside, and run away. She'd put him to sleep and secured him with zipties, as the internet had advised, and was just leaning him against the wall in a comfortable position when she caught sight of movement. She whirled, her hand coming up in the internationally recognized blasting gesture, before bending her elbow to point the hand up. "Oh, sorry," Taylor said. "Didn't know it was you."

The red-clad hero– why do most speedsters wear red? Did red simply go faster or something?– put down his hands, clearly about to do the whole "Easy, easy!" thing. "Yeah, I get that a lot. You Solomon?"

Taylor took a breath, getting herself into the heroic, Legend-ary mindset. **[1d20+21! 29!]** "That's me. Pleased to meet you sir."

"I'm not a sir, I work for a living," the hero said, but he smiled as shook Taylor's hand. "What are we looking at here?"

For an answer, Taylor snapped her fingers, causing a door to swing open. Screams, cursing, crying and other sounds filtered out.

Velocity took a look inside, then paused. "Are those two having sex?"

Taylor didn't look. "Possibly. I just threw webs at them so they couldn't run away and closed the door. Squeeler and Mush are in the middle of… that, somewhere. Skidmark's asleep in the toilet. I marked the door." She paused. "Make sure whoever goes after him has a gas mask. It really stinks."."

Velocity coughed. "Well, not our problem. I gather the police were already on their way. That you too?"

Taylor nodded. "They might be a while though. I left a map of the eight other distribution centers I found with an officer I know at a local precinct. He should have gotten it at the same time I called your hotline."

"That's… very good timing," Velocity said.

"Not really," Taylor said, smiling and letting it show in her voice more. "I cheated."

"You cheated?"

Taylor nodded. "Call it power bullshit."

"Ah. _That_ kind of cheating," Velocity said, nodding in understanding. "I was under the impression you were a photokinetic of some kind."

"Yes, I just read about that," Taylor said. "It's wrong, but I can see how people would come to that conclusion."

"Hero to hero, I don't suppose you'd be willing to clear that up for me?" Velocity asked.

Taylor thought about it. "You know how Glory Girl is an Alexandria Package and Purity is a Legend Package?"

"I… don't think I've ever heard someone use the term 'Legend Package' but I can see what you mean," Velocity said slowly.

"I'm an Eidolon Package," Taylor said simply.

There was a pause. "You mean…"

"Yes," Taylor said. "Certain light based powers have just proven to be really convenient. You would not _believe_ how dark it gets around here."

"Oh, don't get me started," Velocity said. "My first month here I was tripping everywhere before I got them to install nightvision into my mask. Is it true you can teleport though? Or was that actually just invisibility?"

"I have both. Only to places I know though, or have a good idea of," Taylor said cautiously. "If you asked me to go to some random town in the Midwest, I'd likely get lost."

He whistled. "That's… wow. That's world class. I'm jealous. I've always wanted to travel."

"You could… no, I suppose not," Taylor said thoughtfully. "Running everywhere sounds too much like healthy exercise to be fun."

Velocity let out a laugh. "Oh, you said it. It helps I don't really get tired when I run though. This is good work, very good. The Merchants don't have any leaders now, and you might have taken a lot of drugs off the streets."

"Only doing my civic duty," Taylor said, and wow, there was no way to not make that line sound corny.

Velocity chuckled. "Oh wow, you're actually serious, aren't you? I didn't think there was anyone other than Legend and maybe Mouse Protector who could say that with a straight face."

"I'll admit, I was inspired by their examples," Taylor said. "Especially Legend. His is an example I strive to live up to every day."

Velocity tilted his head, looking at her sideways. "Is that so… well, you could do worse. A lot worse."

There was a moment of companionable silence.

"Er, no offense, but I have no intention of joining the Wards right now," Taylor said. "I already told Shadow Stalker as much last night when she asked."

"So she said," Velocity said as, in the distance, there came the sounds of emergency vehicles. "Any reason as to why?"

"I have personal reasons to not want to be under the authority of a government institution right now," Taylor said, choosing her words carefully and reasonably sure she was fooling no one. "Even one supposed to look after my interests. I'm in a… situation right now, and…"

Velocity held up a hand. "Say no more," he said. "I get it. Been there. Just… when you're in a better place, can we talk about this again?"

 **[1d20+10! 21!]** He'd… been there? Try as she might, Taylor could see no sign of insincerity. She supposed it made sense. Even heroes must have gone through some kind of shit at some point in their lives. She smiled, and made sure to let him know it. "I'd like that. Do you have a card?"

"Sure," he said, pulling one out from a pocket of his belt. Taylor resolved to finish her own belt as soon as possible. "When you're ready."

Taylor took the card as police and PRT vehicles began to pull up. "I'd better get going," she said.

"Is there a way we can contact you? We might need a statement," Velocity said.

"I'll call you tomorrow," Taylor said. "I have your card, after all."

Velocity nodded. "All right. Take care. You really did good work tonight, Solomon. I mean it. Be proud of yourself."

Taylor was very glad the helmet hid her blush.

….

That night, she slept the sleep of the just.

….

 **\- To be continued…**

….

A/N: Was it wise to straight up tell someone what her powers were?

Taylor has access to ALL mythic versions of the spells she can cast. Just thought I'd make that clear. After all, she can do it with all arcane spells...

What? Did you not get the memo she was supposed to be OP?

….

"An _Eidolon_ Package," Director Emily Piggot said. "A _Trump?_ "

"That's what she said, ma'am," Velocity said, by force of habit and ingrained terror from his time at the military standing stiffly at attention. "And from what we saw, it's a simpler explanation than her being a grab-bag. She has at minimum light generation, invisibility, telekinesis, those webs, some kind of knockout power for putting people to sleep without touching them, flight, and a Stranger power that let her tape a map to a man's coffee in the middle of a full precinct full of police while the man was about to drink from it. Then there's the possibility of some kind of Thinker power that let her find all those drug stashes, since according to the police she didn't even know what drugs looked like yesterday and asked to see them, and whatever thinker or mover power she used to drop off her map with the police at practically the same time she called us. And then there's whatever Stranger effect is on her cape."

"That's confirmed, then?"

Velocity nodded. "It turned three distinct colors during our conversation, though it only turned red very briefly. She didn't seem aware of it, so it might have been reacting to me. Something about my mental state. When I checked footage on my helmet cam, it registered orange the whole time."

"Hmm. The cellphone trace confirmed she was already at the warehouse when she made a call. Even with teleportation, she shouldn't have had time to put leave them the map. And then there's all the blood."

Velocity paused. "Blood, ma'am?"

"One of the spots on her map was an apartment that had been locked down by unknown means. The police needed to batter their way in. the hallways outside had been drenched floor to ceiling with blood. Forensics is testing it, but–" There was a notification form her computer, and the director paused. "Ah. Chemical analysis came back. It's not blood, some kind of mineral solution that just looks like blood."

"Maybe she just used it to draw attention to the apartment ma'am," Velocity suggested. "Give the police a pretext to knock on doors."

"That sounds like more intelligence than we can usually expect from new parahumans," the director said, sounding grudging. "But given that's exactly what it did, you might be right. You can ask her tomorrow."

"Me, ma'am?" Velocity said.

"You gave her your card, after all," the director said coolly. "You should be expecting the call."

"Yes ma'am," Velocity said.

"Dismissed."

As Velocity turned to leave the director's office, a part of him wondered if he actually had succeeded in getting out of the army. This all felt vaguely familiar.

….

Please review, C&C welcome.

Until next time, this is Shadow, signing off.


	5. Finalizing Your Sheet!

Toaru Majutsu no Taylor-chan: A Certain Mythic Archmage

by Shadow Crystal Mage

Chapter 4: Finalizing Your Sheet!

Disclaimer: Worm created by Wildbow. Pathfinder by Paizo. All hail Gygax!

….

 _January 28, 2011_

"You're looking chipper," Danny said.

Taylor smiled. "I slept great last night."

"Pleasant dreams?"

"Yeah."

It looked like it was going to be a great day.

….

 **Welcome to the Parahumans Online message boards.**

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 **Topic: Ding-Dong, The Merchants Are Gone!**

 **In: Boards ► News ► East Coast ► Massachusetts ► Brockton Bay**

 **Brocktonite03** (Original Poster) (Veteran Member)

Posted On Jan 28th 2011:

So, last night, the Bay's newest hero Solomon took down the Archer's Bridge Merchants (who were nowhere near Archer's Bridge at the time, which is currently ABB territory). As in, the ENTIRE gang, and its parahumans too. The police managed to seize most of their drugs, money and weapons, and the Mad Max monstrosities that pass for Squealer's Tinker Tech. For all intents and purposes, the Merchants are GONE.

According to both the police and the PRT, there wasn't even a fight. The first the police got find of it was when she sent a map of Merchant locations to an unnamed police officer. As in, she taped it to his mug without him noticing just as he was about to drink from it. This coincided with an emergency call to the PRT hotline at almost the same time (according to phone records, she made the call several blocks away at the same moment the police officer noticed there was a map in his coffee).

Still with me? Brace yourself, because it gets more bullshit. Apparently, the map contained nine locations that she hit simultaneously at the same time as when she was calling the PRT and leaving the tip with the police. According to witnesses, one second the place was quiet, the next Merchant's are screaming down the house because they've all been tied up where they were by what reports say is some kind of short-lived, decomposing rope-thick spiderweb.

So, to summarize: our hero hit nine places at once, all at the same time, with one of them being where Skidmark, Squealer and Mush were, while simultaneously leaving a tip for both the police and the PRT. No details as to how she did it, just that she did.

What will she do for an encore?

 **(Showing page 1 of 18)**

► **XxVoid_CowboyxX**

Replied On Jan 28th 2011:

I call bullshit! Are you telling me she can be in nine places at once?

► **M ry_Su3 (Unverified Cape) (Cape Groupie) (Verified Fanfic Writer)**

Replied On Jan 28th 2011:

Ten if you count the police station.

► **Aloha**

Replied On Jan 28th 2011:

Is there any official word on what the fuck is up with that cape?

► **Divide**

Replied On Jan 28th 2011:

It's a cloak, actually. But, yeah, seriously, what's the deal?-! Is it gold, orange or red?

► **Botticelli** (Unverified Turtle)

Replied On Jan 28th 2011:

Really, that's what you're all hung up about? The color of her accessory? She just took out a whole gang! The woman had a gang war so fast the other side didn't notice until she was handing them over to the cops!

► **Iron Striver** (Wiki Warrior) (Verified Cape) (Kyushu Survivor)

Replied On Jan 28th 2011:

Are we still sure she's a photokinetic? Webs doesn't sound very light related?

► **M ry_Su3** (Unverified Cape) (Cape Groupie) (Verified Fanfic Writer)

Replied On Jan 28th 2011:

Maybe it's a hard light construct? If anything, this just proves she's a light manipulator. Probably has a Breaker state like Legend that let her go around to all those places at the speed of light

► **GoetiaKyrielight**

Replied On Jan 28th 2011:

I for one welcome our bright new Jewish overlord.

► **Procto the Unfortunate Tinker** (Not a tinker)

Replied On Jan 28th 2011:

How do we know she's Jewish? King Solomon is also mentioned in Christianity and Islam.

 **End of Page. 1,** **2** **,** **3** **...** **16** **,** **17** **,** **18**

….

After working on her belt and trying her hand at self-portraiture and ice-sculpting, Taylor had committed some breaking and entering. That is, she'd roamed her neighborhood, looking for a house where everyone had left, and then used her suit's immateriality function to walk inside to use their phone. She should probably get a phone for this.

To assuage her guilt, she set a power to clean up a little.

She dialed the number on the card and waited.

 _"Velocity here. Solomon?"_

"Good morning sir," Taylor said, getting her Legend on. "How are you this morning?

 _"Doing fine, all things considered,"_ Velocity said, sounding a little tired. _"And what did I say about calling me sir?"_

"Sorry, but etiquette hasn't settled on the correct form of address for heroes yet, and 'Mister Velocity' sounds too formal."

There was a bark of laughter. _"Ain't that the truth. 'Velocity' will be fine. Unless you want me calling you 'Miss Solomon'?"_

"Velocity it is," Taylor said.

 _"Well, now that's out of the way, I was wondering if you could come in to the PRT today?"_ Velocity said. He gave an embarrassed cough. _"Fair warning, you_ might _get another pitch about joining the Wards, but no pressure. Just tell them what you told me."_

Taylor frowned. "Any particular reason why?"

 _"Mostly due diligence. This way we can say we officially asked you and you turned us down if we're asked, officially."_

"O-kay…" Taylor said. "Is that all?"

 _"No, that's just a warning. Actually, we need you to come to base so you can collect your bounty."_

Taylor blinked. "A bounty?"

 _"Uh huh,"_ Velocity said, and there was a shuffling of papers. _"Three, really, for Skidmark, Mush and Squeeler. It's not much, since it's a standard government bounty, and those three really haven't done much to merit something higher, but it's still a decent sum."_

"H-how much is it?" Taylor said, her Legend impression temporarily being overrun by the strange concept of the government actually _giving_ her money.

Velocity quoted a sum and Taylor nearly dropped the phone.

 _"That's after taxes, of course,"_ the hero said as Taylor tried to recover her equilibrium. _"Sorry, it's really one of the few ways that capes can be taxed, since secret identities make it hard for those just starting out to file taxes. If you went into business, you'd need to see a lawyer about setting up something to take care of that. It makes the cut much lower. "_

"I… see…" Taylor said, not really seeing anything but the dollar bills in her eyes. "I've… never really thought of that."

 _"You'd think it would be more common knowledge,"_ Velocity agreed, sounding slightly amused. Given what she probably sounded like on his end, Taylor couldn't blame him. _"But it's like a specialized industry regulation. Unless you're working in that field, there's really not much reason you'd hear about it."_ A wheedling tone entered his voice. _"If you have any more questions, we'd been glad to answer them once you come down to HQ."_

Taylor quirked an eyebrow. "Subtle," she said dryly.

 _"I have no idea what you're talking about, Miss Solomon,"_ Velocity said piously. _"Does ten o'clock sound good to you?"_

"That sounds fine," Taylor said. "See you then."

….

Since ten o'clock was still some time away, Taylor spent that time constructively. First, she snuck out of the house she'd snuck into, easier since she could invisibly climb out of an upper window and close it behind her. That done, she walked home, went to the basement, and quietly started giggling to herself about all the money she now had. After about twenty minutes of this undignified behavior, she composed herself, went upstairs to get a drink, and started giggling all over again.

Wow. Just… wow!

For a moment, she wondered if Legend would have donated it all to charity, before quashing that thought with a ruthlessness usually reserved for military dictatorships seeking world domination. There were some things she had to act like herself about.

Like… WOW!

After taking _more_ time to compose herself, Taylor decided to step out and clear her head.

Then she paused, realizing that until today, she'd only ever gone out in costume at night.

A wild grin spread across her face.

….

The bus driver did a double take when the woman in the helmet, silk bodysuit, snakeskin tunic and cape stepped onto the bus and paid her fair, but if there was something on his mind, he decided to keep it there.

Whistling a jaunty tune and with a spring in her step, the woman settled on one of the chairs in the middle of the bus, arranging her cape so that no one would have to sit on it. She seemed to not notice the whispers and people staring at her, even if they were sitting in front of her and turning around, many with phone raised in what they probably thought was a subtle fashion. The ones behind her weren't even trying, waving their phones over the ones in front of them.

Taylor was just glad she still managed to find enough change for bus fair. Using her power to locate small change hidden in odd corners of the house was _not_ something she'd ever expected to do.

Eventually the bus reached a destination and Taylor got off. She was glad the store they stopped in front of had a nice, shiny storefront, otherwise she'd have had to turn around to see all the people pressed up against the bus windows. From there, it was only a short walk to PRT Headquarters.

At this time of day, the lobby was mostly filed with tourists, either there for the tour or buying from the gift shop. She made a promise to herself to hit the gift shop after she picked up her bounty. The place was smaller than she expected, though since what Taylor had expected would have required a building three times larger, that wasn't hard. Taylor made for the front desk, ignoring the gawkers as she patiently waited behind a middle-aged man. He had apparently been the victim of a crime and was there to reclaim his stolen… Narwhal-themed saucepan? Apparently his thieves had very strange tastes and hero marketing was getting a little out of control.

 **[1D20+21! 34!]** As he followed a PRT agent to retrieve his… saucepan… Taylor stepped up to the desk, trying to be as Legend-ary as she could. "Good morning. Velocity said I should come at this time to pick up a bounty. Am I expected?"

The man at the front desk was apparently used to people in costume just walking up to him. He checked his computer. "Name please?"

"Solomon. Denomination non-specific," Taylor said.

The PRT man actually took a moment to consider that last before nodding. "Ah, here we are. If you'd please proceed to meeting room 9, someone will be with you with the claim forms in a moment. Drebin, would you please show her the way?"

Drebin was a nervous young man with a lanyard that read 'Intern'. Despite probably being a year or two older than Taylor, he managed to look even more awkward as he led her through a door that wasn't the one the tour went through (she remembered from an old field trip to this very building). Through it was a rather boring-looking hallway that wouldn't have been unremarkable in any office building (vaguely remembered from visits with Emma to her father's office, and nope, not going to think about that, out damned spot!) filled with many identical doors. Each room had a wall made of some transparent material– not glass. Acrylic?– facing the hallway with adjustable blinds for privacy, with simple wooden doors. As they walked, the middle-aged man from before stepped out of one, carry a saucepan and a folder. Taylor did not see how the saucepan could be considered Narwhal-themed.

The felt-like tile carpeting muffled the sounds of her boots as the intern led Taylor to one of the rooms. Inside was a rectangular table sized to fit two pairs of people sitting opposite each other. Taylor, from some ingrained paranoia, took one of the chairs that faced the door.

She was just clipping her cloak back on after it had come off because she sat on it– thankfully her magnetic quick release cloak pins seemed to be working– when Velocity strolled down the hall and to her room, a folder in hand.

"Well, that was certainly… a thing," Velocity said as he lay the folder down on the table. "When I left my office the video of you riding a bus had gotten over 10 thousand hits on Youtube and rising."

"We must support our public transportation," Taylor said solemnly. "It will help cut down traffic."

"Must we?" Velocity said. "They always used to be full when I used them."

"Hence why they need our support," Taylor said. "So that the number of buses will increase and not be so full."

They shared a look, even through the helmet, and laughed. "Seriously though, why?"

"Would you believe that's the first time I've been out in costume in daylight that people have seen me?" Taylor said.

"Really?" Velocity said, sounding surprised.

"Oh yeah," Taylor said. "Its kind of creepy reading about all the people who've seen me at night though. Don't they ever sleep?"

"No, we seem to have a hidden legion of insomniacs with their phones constantly on and uploading on to the internet. Still… a bus ride?"

"Better than a fight in the streets," Taylor said. "Probably less paperwork too. And almost certainly no casualties."

Velocity 'hmm'-ed. "I suppose that's a point."

Then Velocity opened the folder, and more serious discussion began. Taylor was glad for how concealing her helmet was, as the huge grin on her face probably wasn't heroic, unless the hero in question was Conan about to pillage the treasure-strewn temple of the evil serpent gods. "So, here are the forms regarding your bounties," he said, bringing out three sets of paperwork. "The usual procedure in most things like this is have the taxes be paid _before_ releasing, but given capes," he gestured at the mask on his face and her own by association, "They just deduct that from the total. Though I hear the deduction is less if you pay the taxes yourself. Some kind of processing fee."

Taylor stared at the paperwork, reaffirming the number of digits on it. She had to stifle an urge, and she wasn't sure if it was to cackle, rub her hands together and say 'Mine, mine!', dance around, or for her grin to get so big it cracked her face.

"You all right?" Velocity said, sound amused. "You're helmet is shaking."

"I'm all right," Taylor said, knowing her voice was more high-pitched than it should be. "Really."

"First bounty, huh," Velocity said, not smirking. It carried in his voice anyway. "I'm… kinda surprised. Given how good your gear is, I'd have thought… well."

Taylor understood. "Power bullshit," she said. "I made everything myself either by hand or with powers."

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that cape silk?"

"Power bullshit," Taylor repeated. "Didn't cost a cent except for the magnets holding it in place. I was actually flat broke when you called."

Velocity whistled. "I know I'm supposed to give you the official Wards pitch, but after you say no, can I interest you in hearing what being a rogue entails?" He marked some spots on one set of paperwork. "Sign here, here, here, here, initial here."

Taylor picked up the pen and was just to begin the downward stroke of her name when she froze.

"Cape name," Veocity said smoothly as Taylor gave him a suspicious look. "Although if you want to sign your real name, that's fine too." He smiled guilelessly.

"These must be the famous underhanded government tactics I've heard of," Taylor said dryly. It occurred to her that probably wasn't a Legend-y thing to say and winced as she realized she'd been letting herself show since he walked into the room. Taking a breath, she straightened slightly in her chair, squaring her shoulders in the guise of getting ready to sign the next set of papers.

When she pushed the last of the papers back, she was in full 'I Am Legend' mode (only with less sort-of-vampires and serial-killer-esque murders), trying to project as much friendliness, inspiration, gay, nobility and heroism as she thought Legend would without it being jarring.

Apparently, it wasn't enough to draw attention, since Velocity paid it no heed. Checking over the sheets, he nodded and drew out a plain white envelope. "These are your checks for the bounties, made to cash. Don't lose that or anyone can cash it. They'll accept it at the Central Bank."

"Thank you," Taylor said, wincing a little at putting the envelope in her belt pouch. She'd need to get around to making something that was bigger on the inside.

"You're welcome," Velocity said. "And now, the Wards pitch. Brace yourself."

"Do what you have to do," Taylor said, sitting attentively at attention. "At worst, it will help me make a more informed decision at a later time."

The Wards PitchTM began, covering the usual mentions of support, training, 'a way for young parahumans to learn about their powers in a safe environment' and, implicitly, 'not die horribly out in the streets alone on some cold rainy night'. There was apparently a trust find, pay, use of facilities, relocation assistance, comprehensive family health benefits, a guaranteed spot in the Protectorate upon graduation, and possibly a pony.

Taylor politely declined.

Velocity nodded, clearly expecting it, put away the papers detailing Ward benefits, which Taylor was pretty sure had been excised of inconveniently dissuading fine print, and pulled out a different sheath of papers.

The benefits for rogues were much less, but were likely much less binding. They received a regular stipend upon registering provided they remained eligible, mostly by not committing any crimes, with an aside from Velocity that in some cities this usually meant some kind of protection. Given Brockton Bay, here that protection amounted to training before you joined the Protectorate, or help packing up as you left town. Apparently, _lots_ of people became rogues in Brockton Bay, it was just few _stayed_ there. And until residency data was upgraded, they did their part in the city's 'capes per capita' statistic. Registered rogues, especially the Tinker kind, were also given assistance in getting access to certain materials, since there were suppliers that would only accept orders of certain materials in certain volumes (usually below the minimum they asked for per order) if you were a registered rogue. Velocity also added that registered rogues were usually in a better position to negotiate with their local Protectorate, usually an exchange of power-assisted services in exchange for expediting, assistance in kind or, most crassly, and increase in their stipend.

"So if you have any powers that you think you can make people pay through the nose for, now would be the time to mention it," Velocity said.

Taylor considered that. "I can heal," she said. "Though soft tissue damage, broken bones, diseases and mental illness are each separate conditions that each need a different power to heal, and I'm not sure about that last."

Velocity paused. "I was being rhetorical," he said, "but that will do it."

Taylor nodded. "What about power-created stuff?" she said. "Like say if I want to sell steel or something."

Velocity had the look of man who had just recently reviewed material he hadn't touched in a while and was frantically trying to recall. If Taylor wasn't looking at him, she suspected he might have given in to the temptation to find said material and reread it. "Well, they wouldn't buy steel, but they'll assist you in finding a buyer for a fee and putting income tax on the earnings from it. Again, this is one of those things that you'd best find a lawyer for, since they'll probably get you a better deal. The rogue registration will also get you taken seriously as a supplier, provided you can certify the material is power-generated or -processed and you're not just reselling. I'd suggest against selling steel, unless it's an exotic tinker alloy of some kind. Rare metals like iridium would be more valuable provided it's tested to be pure."

"Diamonds?" Taylor prompted.

"I think there's some kind of ruling that states parahuman-generated diamonds are industrial-grade only, no matter how clear," Velocity said, "although there's always the collectors market. And before you start throwing more materials at me, there's also a limit on materials so as to not crash the market or something. Rule of thumb, small amounts are okay, huge amounts get you investigated or restricted unless there's a pressing industrial need. "

Taylor coughed. "Hypothetically… gold?"

Velocity stilled. "Hypothetically?"

"Purely hypothetically," Taylor said piously. "Like, say, I went deep sea mining or something."

"Hypothetically, that's the sort of thing that get people nervous about the markets ad economies crashing," Velocity said. "But hypothetically, if it's purely small amounts… the hypothetical person would want a hypothetical lawyer to make hypothetical arrangements. Hypothetically." he glanced down briefly and seemed to frown, then shook his head. "Anyway, it doesn't really matter. There have been some Tinkers who've tried to make gold, but it usually costs more resources than they get out of it. So if, hypothetically, someone with such an ability comes along, they'll probably be judged on their own merits. Hypothetically."

"Hypothetically. Of course," Taylor said, nodding.

"The same holds true if you want to sell power-generated liquids and gases," Velocity said. "Then there's use of PRT facilities."

Taylor blinked. What?

"What?"

Apparently PRT facilities were open to rogues by appointment for the purposes of power testing. This was, for example, so that the rogue Brute on the street could figure out how much he could bench press without needing to manhandle increasingly heavier things like cars and trains. It also helped Blasters, Strikers and Shakers learn if their powers had unfortunate side effects, like leftover deadly radiation that the human body wouldn't notice due to not being equipped to detect it.

Taylor really, really hoped she didn't currently have cancer her rainbow beam was radioactive or something. You couldn't trust the rainbow beam. It was a bad as fires.

"Of course, you get that too if you become an independent hero," Velocity said.

Wait, what?

"I thought an independent hero wasn't signed up with the Protectorate?" Taylor said.

"Independent isn't the same as unregistered," Velocity said. "It's like owning a gun. You decide when and how it's used, but we still know you have it. Villains, of course, don't have to. Independents don't really _need_ to either, since they could theoretically fund and equip themselves, but they get a similar stipend as a rogue; individual health coverage provided the PRT can corroborate their registry, since most don't really have their insurance card on them if they show up bleeding from a gut wound at a hospital; less income tax on bounties. And of course, use of PRT facilities by appointment, including reasonable gear repairs and consultation. Additionally, though it's not actually a requirement, being an independent carries an expectation of making a good-faith appearance at an Endbringer fight some time before your third renewal. "

What, really? "That sounds…" Taylor tried to be polite. "Potentially fatal."

Velocity shrugged. "It's peer pressure, I know. 'If you're really a hero, why have you never shown up against Endbringers?'. I've never seen it happen, but at that point I hear you're politely asked to register as a rogue instead."

"I'm sensing a blatant bias," Taylor said.

Velocity shrugged unapologetically. "It doesn't have the materials and economic incentives of a rogue registry, unless you happen to be a Tinker. To be honest, rogue registry is slightly biased towards Tinkers due to Toybox lobbyists. Independent hero registration is predicated on the premise you're going to spend your time acting as a hero."

Velocity coughed. "Of course, you can register for both," he said, "though you'll only be getting the independent stipend with rogue addendum, which isn't both lumped together. Most don't bother, unless they're a Tinker, and that's usually only until they get sponsorship or become part of a group. Then they're someone else' problem unless they commit a parahuman crime. There are other cases, like corporate sponsorship and independent groups, which have their on registrations, but you seem to be alone, so no need to bring it up… is there?" he asked warily.

Taylor shook her head. "No, that's fine."

Velocity gave a faint sigh, and Taylor got the feeling he was finished trying to remember. "Well, that's about it. But there's one more thing I need to tell you." He looked serious. "This is something you're going to need to know if you're going to operate as a parahuman. You skirted dangerously close to it last night when you captured the Merchants, but fortunately, Skidmark and his crew don't count for much, and they really don't have a secret identity to speak of. I doubt you're going to get any fallout from it. Still, best you know now than later."

Wait, what?

"Why would I possibly get in trouble for taking down Skidmark?" Taylor asked. "No one was hurt, and I broke no laws that I am aware of in either his capture or the acquisition of the information leading to his capture."

"Because if it weren't for the fact Skidmark is basically Skidmark the cape– as much as the term can be applied to him– all the time instead of whoever he is under that mask, what you did comes dangerously close to being construed as attacking a cape in his home," Velocity said. "And the reason that's dangerous is because… well, some people call them the unwritten rules. I like to think of them as the rules of engagement."

Velocity told her. No unmasking other capes on purpose and the protocol when doing so by accident. Yes, even with villains. No attacking them at home. No going after family members. Avoidance of the use of lethal, as opposed to merely deadly, force. The importance of the Endbringer Truce and related S-Class Threat Truce and why literally everyone from the Triumvirate on downward will turn you into a blast crater as a monumental reminder to future generations about the importance of not violating such.

"The violation of these rules is part of the reason the Slaughterhouse Nine and Heartbreaker are considered S-class threats," Velocity explained.

Taylor shook her head. "It's… it all sounds like some kind of game. I mean, you can't catch me if I go home and take off my mask?"

"I assure you, it's not. Its deadly serious," Velocity underscored. "More serious because it's a sad fact that the villains outnumber the heroes. And while it means that if Victor slips into a crowd and changes into street clothes then we leave him alone, it also means that they don't blow up our Wards when they sleep at home with their families. It's still a war. This just means no hitting below the belt."

"Hitting below the belt is _exactly_ what is recommended in self defense classes to end a fight," Taylor said.

"Then _everyone_ starts hitting below the belt," Velocity countered. "And no matter who starts it, villains outnumbering heroes means they hit us all below the belt by shear attrition." He sighed. "Like I said, they're rules of engagement. In war, they're supposed to make an awful thing just a little less awful and remind the people involved that they're people, not monsters. Heroes don't get into a knockdown, dragout fight to the death with a villain when he's celebrating his kid's birthday just because it means he's less prepared for a fight. We just don't."

Taylor twitched at that. "' _He who fights monsters should see to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you_ '," she murmured.

"Pretty much," Velocity said. He shrugged and essayed a small smile. "And hey, maybe the reverse works too. Maybe a monster who fights enough heroes starts wondering if they can be a hero instead. Its been known to happen. In the Triumvirate's day, there was Rip Tide back in L.A.. Helped during the big earthquake back then, joined the Protectorate and never looked back. Got killed fighting Leviathan in Madrid."

"That story would have been more inspirational without that last part," Taylor pointed out. "But I understand your point, I suppose. But how would people know if anyone broke the rules?"

"They don't, not unless someone manages to survive to tell about it, " Velocity said. "So you still have to watch your back. But if someone tries to break the rules, if you manage to live through it, you can be pretty sure any cape who hears is going to take your story seriously. At the least, the person you accuse is going to be kicked out of whatever group they're in, since no one wants to be suspected of harboring someone like that. But by the same token, false accusations would be taken as seriously as a violation. The only thing keeping this together is everyone's word, and if people don't think your word is any good…"

"So, don't," Taylor said succinctly.

"Don't," Velocity confirmed, sliding the sheets of rogue and independent registry forms towards her. "For you," he said. "Though may I say that we'd probably like to hear more about the healing capabilities you mentioned."

"Perhaps we can have that discussion when I give you my answer considering these," Taylor said, gesturing at the sheets. "And for the sake of your paperwork, I would like to decline joining the Wards at this time."

Velocity nodded. "Well, I gave it my best shot. When you're ready to answer, just give the PRT hotline another call."

"Not you?" Taylor said, tilting her whole head in lieu of raising an eyebrow.

"No. This is technically follow up for last night," Velocity said. "We don't usually step in unless someone needs a little more convincing from their parents or we already got a yes."

"Oh," Taylor said, surprised. "Thank you for your time entertaining my questions, then."

"Not a problem," Velocity said, standing to indicate the closing of their meeting. "Most of the time I meet newbies, it's because they bit off more than they could chew. While I wouldn't exactly encourage people to repeat your stunt last night, the fact you pulled it off without anyone being hurt is promising. How exactly _did_ you manage to seem to be in ten places at once?"

Taylor smiled. "Power bullshit".

Velocity sighed. "Isn't it always," he said, extending his hand.

They shook hands.

….

Taylor went straight home by turning invisible after taking three steps out of the PRT building and teleporting away. Thankfully, the checks and papers weren't too roughed up folded into her belt pouch. Though she'd probably have to start carrying some sort of hard case for stuff like this, maybe a notebook and a pen. Lunch box?

After hiding the papers in her room, she made lunch and sat there considering the possibilities before her. Then she went to work on her ice sculpture some more. It was admittedly a half-baked plan, but better half-baked than uncooked. And either way, having the ingredient ready would be helpful. What if she needed an alibi?

The checks were stuffed in her desk until she figured out how exactly one went about cashing a check and how she was going to explain the sudden money to her dad. Telling him about her powers wasn't so much a step as a big leap into the unknown. On the other hand… what could he do? Stop loving her?

It was at that moment Taylor realized how terrifying she found that prospect.

….

Her father stayed at home that weekend. Taylor hoped she had something to do with that.

After breakfast, they fixed the rotten step on the front porch. Truthfully Taylor could have done that easily with her power, had in fact brought it up intending to do it that way later, but Danny had become… not driven, but enthusiastic about it. They'd gone down to the basement, Taylor glad she'd managed to move all evidence of her prior crafting there, and had come up with tools and wooden boards Taylor vaguely remembered them buying long ago to do this very thing, before… Before. Taylor had knelt there as Danny explained how to properly measure and cut wood, having Taylor take the saw after they were about 2/3rds through to finish. He'd explained about the importance of cleaning and inspecting the site, removing the old nails and using sandpaper before finally fitting the new board back in, explaining the proper way to hold the hammer and letting Taylor finish the work herself. They both took a moment to examine the replacement, testing their weight on it before cleaning up and going to buy some paint to match it with the rest of the steps.

It was the most bonding the two of them had done in years. Taylor loved it.

On Sunday, Danny taught Taylor how to paint it properly, how to go with the grain and the importance of even strokes, before leaving her to repaint all the steps while he went and mowed the lawn. When both were done, Taylor made lemonade and they both almost sat on the still-sticky paint. Taylor got the vague feeling that her dad, in lieu of trying to figure out how to bond with a daughter, had given up and dredged up some of the things his dad had taught him on the probably sound principle that women were allowed to wield hammers and do home repair now and so bonding by teaching how to use tools was a unisex activity. Given how she'd made her own helmet, she could appreciate that.

Small steps became bigger as the ones taking them became a little bit more sure where they were heading.

….

 _January 31_ _st_ _, 2011_

Taylor, after having breakfast with her father and briefly going to the library to figure out how to cash a check– thank goodness for the internet– was in the bank. Currently, she was trying to look nonchalant as the people in line in front of her kept glancing over their shoulders nervously, the security guards wondered whether they were being paid enough to deal with this, and people who stepped into the bank took one look and turned around to go out again.

Really, it wasn't her fault more people didn't wear their cape to the bank.

"Excuse me."

Taylor turned sideways slightly. There was a little old lady (Mark 1 Original, Non-Sassy) standing behind her, her glasses trailing a thin chain that hung from around her neck. Taylor blinked in surprise as she recognized the woman from the times she'd gone to visit her mother at work before… Before. A tenured university professor, if Taylor remembered right, please don't answer that, power.

…

She let out a little sigh of relief. Was her power learning?

"Yes, ma'am?" Taylor said. "Is there anything I can do for you?"

"I was just wondering what you were doing at the bank," the old lady said. Taylor couldn't remember their name. "Forgive me, but this is the first time I've seen one of your kind in line."

Your kind? Taylor wondered if that counted as racist. Or classist. Or probably capist. "Nothing ominous or anything to worry about ma'am," Taylor said. "I'm just here to cash my first paycheck."

The woman's eyes widened in realization. "Oh my. Your first paycheck? Congratulations. I remember earning my firs paycheck, it… "

Taylor listened patiently, nodding every so often as the old woman regaled her with the story of that first paycheck, involving a department store that had apparently closed down a before she'd been born, the then-ferry, and some sort of street party held by one of the then-local gangs who apparently didn't survive the Teeth. The line slowly moved as the story went on, until it was Taylor's turn. She graciously let the woman go to the teller first. Very graciously. It had nothing at all to do with trying to escape, no sir!

When it was finally her turn, the teller seemed a bit more relaxed than she had been before. They still tensed a little when she reached for her belt. From the new leather-covered hard pouch came a plain white envelope. "I'd like to cash a check please," she said simply.

The teller took it gingerly, and only seemed to relax when she saw the check had been issued by the PRT. Taylor waited for the teller to process her, and wondered if this would be when some supervillain would show up to rob the bank. That's the sort of thing that happened in times like this, right?

It wasn't until Taylor found herself standing outside the bank with a downright heroic amount of money (Conan the Barbarian was a hero, right?) burning a hole in her hard pouch did she let herself break out into a huge grin. She turned invisible and flew away before she started cackling. That wouldn't be very heroic.

….

 **Welcome to the Parahumans Online message boards.**

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 **Topic: Solomon Discussion Thread**

 **In: Boards ► Capes ► Discussions ► East Coast ► Massachusetts ► Brockton Bay**

 **Brocktonite03** (Original Poster) (Veteran Member)

Posted On Jan 27th 2011:

The following is the thread for the discussion of Brockton Bay's newest superhero, Solomon. To start, here's what is known about her at this time:

• She's old-school. As in 'literally wears a cape' old-school. It's like she belongs in a 60's comicbook.  
• Edit: Correction, it's a cloak, though she doesn't wear the hood up much, presumably because of her helmet.  
• Edit: said cloak has some weird Stranger effect on it that makes people perceive at as one of 3 different colors, gold, orange and red. Orange is what shows up in pictures and videos, and it's unknown what causes the perception change in observers.  
• She's not admitting whether she's Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Mormon, Amish or what have you.  
• Although no statement has been made, she's suspected to have some kind of light-based Blaster, Mover, Stranger, Shaker, and Breaker abilities. The Stranger effect on her cape is possibly related to this.  
• She apparently takes public transportation? In full costume, no less.  
• She goes to the bank in full costume too, apparently  
• At least one verified case of getting a cat down from a tree  
• She buys ice-cream for little kids at the park.  
• Actually, for a cape she sure does a lot of normal stuff in costume.

First sighting video here: [link]

First confirmed interaction here: [link](Warning, long video)

Picture gallery here: [link]

Analysis and discussion on the Archer Bridge Merchants takedown here: [Thread 1], [Thread 2], [Thread 3], [Thread 4]

The Bus Incident: [link][link][link][link]

The Bank Incident: [link][link][link][link][link][link]

The Ice-Cream Incident: [link][link][link][link]

Solomon at the Lord Street Market: [link][link][link][link][link][link][link][link]

Solomon at a hardware store: [link][link]

 **(Showing page 103 of 104)**

► **Logs**

Replied On Jan 31st 2011:

Look, all I'm saying is those kids should have known better than to accept ice-cream from someone wearing a cape and helmet. She might have been a Master or some pervert trying to lure them into her van!

► **M/\ry_Su3** (Unverified Cape) (Cape Groupie) (Verified Fanfic Writer)

Replied On Feb 1st 2011:

Oh please, how many Masters go around wearing capes and giving out ice-cream to kids? They're MASTERS, they don't need to trick you with ice-cream. Well, except for Cold Dish, but even she isn't into little kids!

► **Logs**

Replied On Feb 1st 2011:

It's just common sense!

► **Reave** (Verified PRT Agent)

Replied On Feb 1st 2011:

Look, if you can't trust someone in a cape, who can you trust?

► **XxVoid_CowboyxX**

Replied On Feb 1st 2011:

Guys, news! Hear me out, I've got proof of this one. Solomon just showed up in my school and is busting the top bitch and her bitchettes for bullying another student! [link]

► **Botticelli** (Unverified Turtle)

Replied On Feb 1st 2011:

DID YOU JUST OUT SOLOMON?

► **XxVoid_CowboyxX**

Replied On Feb 1st 2011:

Finish the video dipwad, she clearly says she's just impersonating that girl, that's not Solomon's real face. So don't ban me!

► **Bagrat** (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)

Replied On Feb 1st 2011:

Probably a hardlight hologram using her light manipulation. I guess we can add Changer to her list of powers now, huh?

► **Oniland Manager** (Cape Wife) (Unverified Oni)

Replied On Feb 1st 2011:

Wow, light manipulation is fucking broken. Seriously Legend can't do most of that stuff, he just got lasers. Bullshit lasers, but just lasers. Unless he has a shapeshifting laser we don't know about.

► **Mac's Dual Rocket Propelled Grenades**

Replied On Feb 1st 2011:

Why was she even at your school impersonating this girl?

 **End of Page.** **1** **,** **2** **,** **3** **...** **101** **,** **102** **, 103,** **104** **,**

 **(Showing page 104 of 104)**

► **Amazing Agent** (Unverified Agent)

Replied On Feb 1st 2011:

Clearly they made her hero-senses tingle.

► **GoetiaKyrielight**

Replied On Feb 1st 2011:

She learned they were on the naughty list.

► **Gwanda03** (Cape Groupie)

Replied On Feb 1st 2011:

That's Santa Claus dude. Wrong Mover who can be in multiple places at once.

► **CutestPeni**

Replied On Feb 1st 2011:

Are we sure? No one's ever seen Solomon and Santa together at the same time. And we know that there's evidence Santa's stomach is just a pillow.

► **ArachnoPork**

Replied On Feb 1st 2011:

OMG! Santa is Solomon! It makes perfect sense!

► **RyanThePool**

Replied On Feb 1st 2011:

Do you think she can make giant hands and boxing gloves with hardlight manipulation?

► **White Fairy** (Veteran Member)

Replied On Feb 1st 2011:

Please move this discussion to the relevant Santa Claus Analysis thread.

► **MaydayForever!**

Replied On Feb 1st 2011:

Maybe this is why she went to the bank? This [REDACTED] girl paid her to impersonate her in school and she was getting the checked cashed.

► **Tobias Red-Tail** (Newfoundland Survivor)

Replied On Feb 1st 2011:

That's just stupid. Why not just report it to the school? This looks like some kind of setup. Why would a superhero even need to go so far as impersonating a student just to deal with some bullying? It's not like it's a crime.

► **XxVoid_CowboyxX**

Replied On Feb 1st 2011:

My school is a hole and this shits been going on for over a year. That right there in the video? That's not even the worst of it. Did you hear about Locker Girl?

 **End of Page.** **1** **,** **2** **,** **3** **...** **102** **,** **103** **, 104**

….

 **\- To be continued…**

….

A/N: So, here's my partial experiment on trying to use PHO segments to advance the story rather than just using it as a brief intermission to throw in some jokes with the user names while repeating what we already know. How did I do?

Please review, C&C welcome.

Until next time, this is Shadow, signing off.


	6. Bluff Check, Don't Fail Me Now!

A/N: Shh! Don't say anything. If someone brings it up, it might scare away the muse!

….

Toaru Majutsu no Taylor-chan: A Certain Mythic Archmage

by Shadow Crystal Mage

Chapter 5: Bluff Check, Don't Fail Me Now!

Disclaimer: Worm created by Wildbow. Pathfinder by Paizo. All hail Gygax!

….

 _February 1, 2011_

The PRT interview room– as opposed to their interrogation room, which for PR reasons was not this– was Goldilocks. Which was to say, it was not to intimidating or too comfortable, but just right. Unfortunately, being of government institution design gave it the metaphysical straw to tip the scales against its favor.

Still, Taylor sat on the chair provided and tried to look self-assured, comfortable, and totally not in trouble. She pointedly ignored the camera in one corner of the ceiling after glancing at it once, seeming to play more attention to her cloak. Okay, that wasn't seeming, her cloak kept trying to pop out of her magnetic clasp if she moved too much. She had just managed to get it just right when the door opened and she reflexively sat up to be polite.

The man who came in had a hairline that was either starting the slow journey towards recession or had always been naturally high. He appeared on the young side of middle-aged, unless he was the kind of man who looked middle-aged when he hit 25 and stayed that way 'til his sixties. Taylor really didn't know enough to tell the difference. He did, however, look extremely boring for all that, carrying the plain suit he wore with a relaxed casualness that made the cheap suit less a uniform of the government and more like just something he picked out from his closest. He was carrying a tape recorder and a folder with him.

"Solomon?" he said. His smile was was small, bland and polite, its sincerity non-denominational. "I'm Agent Gregg, I'll be debriefing you and taking your statement regarding events. Do you have any questions before we begin?"

"Yes, actually," Taylor said. Even as she prayed his name wasn't some dark and terrible omen of incoming incompetence. She was, of course, projecting Legend as usual, which was a bit hard right now since she was basically having to make up how Legend would react when he was mildly befuddled. "Why is the PRT involved? This wasn't a parahuman crime, as I understand it. No offense, but I'm a bit confused on the matter. This seems to be a case for the police."

"You're basically correct, but the PRT responding only to crimes by parahumans is a common misconception," Agent Gregg said. "Actually, our purview also includes crimes involving and _towards_ parahumans. The reason that's not so well-known in Brockton is likely because most of our notable local parahumans are, to put it lightly, Nazis and a rage dragon, and besides New Wave, everyone has a secret identity and calls the police or handles things themselves. Which usually results in either a crime or vigilante activity. And since this was technically precipitated by an assault _on_ a parahuman…"

"I see," Taylor said, nodding. That… sort of made sense actually.

"On that note, I'd like to apologize in advance if this is a little slow," Agent Gregg said, his smile turning a mildly apologetic as he began to set up the tape recorder, opening a new tape. "We might be a bit out of practice at this part. This is actually the first in a while where the parahuman involved walked through the front door instead of just calling the hotline and leaving the phone on for us to trace. Which doesn't really work since sometimes we don't get a location back from the trace, so an address would be really helpful."

"I will be sure to remember that," Taylor said sincerely. She watched as he tested the recorder, then noted today's date, her anme, his name, and some kind of incident report number.

"Now, in your own words, could you please tell me what happened?" Agent Gregg said, opening a notebook and readying a pen. "Start with the events of this morning for the record."

Taylor nodded, then took a deep breath, using the moment as cover to activate her lesser emulator. Best to do it subtly. "Well, I suppose this morning's when I arrived at Winslow Public School disguised as Taylor Hebert with the intention of collecting information as to some claims she had made about her experiences there…"

 **[1d20+21+20+1d12! 65!]**

….

 _February 1, 2011, Earlier That Day…_

Taylor felt like she'd made a horrible, horrible mistake. She should have used the ice sculpture. It was even finished and everything!

It said something that even though she was wearing her full costume– her silk body armor disguised to look like normal jeans and a hoodie, her helmet turned into glasses, her cape folded and tucked under said false hoodie along with her vest. Only her boots remained unchanged, but were mostly obscured by her pseudo-jeans– she felt defenseless and naked. Her hips felt weird, and it took her a moment to realize it was the lack of leather pouches on her belt hanging from her sides.

Breakfast that morning had been the most awkward it had been in days. Her dad had looked like he'd wanted to try and talk her out of going to school. Truthfully, she'd been ready to be talked out of it. Her dad had even tentatively suggested that maybe she still wasn't feeling well and could stay home one more day. She'd turned him down like an idiot. What was she such an idi–?

Taylor barely caught herself before finishing that mental thought, lest her stupid traitor of a power answer the rhetorical question. See? Progress!

Taking a deep breath she began to walk forward. It was with the grim determination of a hobbit going into Mordor, desperately wishing to turn around but not allowing themselves the cowardice. She was a hero now, she could do this! Yes, definitely! What sort of hero was a coward who ran away from their problems?

…

Power, stop answering stupid rhetorical questions. Also, Scooby-Doo is not a hero in the proper sense, so it doesn't count!

She didn't go to her locker. Never. Never again. All her stuff was in her backpack, and if it was a little heavy, well, better that then going near that… box.

Winslow was unchanged. The graffiti, the sense of encroaching helplessness, the crowds, the line of girls blocking her path...

…

Wow, this was earlier than Taylor had thought it would happen. Had they been waiting for her? Here? In the middle of the hallway? Possibly all month? That was… vaguely sad, really. Didn't they have any friends to talk to or something?

…

Power, stop answering rhetorical questions. And that was just sad. Taylor didn't want her power making her sad for the bitches sucking up to Emma by bullying her.

She wanted to look down, to hunch in to try and avoid their attention. But no, that wouldn't work. For one thing, they'd already seen her. Hiding was pointless. The ring on her finger called to her, tempted her with its power. She wondered if maybe making a magic ring that turned one invisible, with cursive writing on it, might have been tempting fate a little bit too much. Fortunately the ring was hidden under her gloves. Not her costume gloves, which were currently shrunk and in her bag. The fake gloves made from her disguised armor.

So it was an internally torn but relatively straight-backed Taylor Hebert who walked up to the bunch of girls blocking the hallway. They 'subtlety' surrounded her like a creepy children in a bad horror movie, talking as if speaking to themselves. She wouldn't react. Legend wouldn't. Actually, that was right! Why should she only try to be heroic in costume. She had her powers at all times, so she should behave properly at all times! Yes, right now she needed to be like Legend too. He wouldn't let what people were saying get him down. He'd stand tall, soldier on, come out as gay and damn what people think because it was the right thing to do! **[1d20+1d12+21! 33!]**

Sufficiently hyped up in her own mind, Taylor glanced about. Of the semi-circle, Madison was the shortest. She wasn't right next to Emma, who was pretending to talk to Sophia, an act rendered somewhat pointless by how the athletic girl was smirking and constantly looking sideways at Taylor. Instead, she was talking to one of the other girls, a petite blonde thing that veered closer to 'neatly dressed' than 'overdressed'. Taylor didn't know her name. It didn't matter.

Ignoring Emma, Taylor smiled down at Madison. "Excuse me, " she said politely. "Could you let me through please?"

Madison didn't even glance sideways, intent on her fake conversation about how poor and shoddy Taylor's clothes were.

Taylor leaned forward fractionally. **"** _ **Move,**_ **"** she said in a perfectly level, polite voice that was not a little bit intimidating at all. **[1d20+21! 32!]**

Madison and the girl next to her both jerked and stepped aside, wide-eyed and looking shaken. Taylor gave them a bright, heroic smile. "Thank you," she said.

Both of them twitched and seemed to unconsciously step back.

Taylor took all of one step before Sophia was practically in her face, the shorter girl having seemingly no concept of personal space. "Going somewhere Hebert?"

Taylor essayed a disarming smile. "I was only heading to class." She took a calculated half-step back, angled so that it would put her behind the line of girls and not back inside their circle.

Smirking, Sophia moved to blatantly shoulder check her, striking Taylor hard–

And leaving her blinking as she didn't feel a thing while Sophia fell on her ass on the floor.

The entire hallway probably _didn't_ pause and stare, but Taylor felt like it should.

"You trying to start something Hebert?" Sophia snarled, recovering faster than Taylor would have thought, clearly wired for a fight. Her legs tried to sweep Taylor out from under her in a move that seemed part breakdancing, part gymnastics as she got back to her feet, fists up.

Taylor felt the impact on her shin but nothing else as she stumbled sideways slightly. "Look, I'm not– "

Sophia… did not move too fast for Taylor to react, despite what the cliché would have been. In fact, Taylor was fairly certain she could have moved before Sophia did. Was that a Thinker power or a Mover power? _And why hadn't she noticed before now?_ Taylor wondered, in a way she would later realize was much too calm. She moved defensively, trying to stay away from Sophia's fists, moving so as not to be encircled and trapped where Sophia could beat down on her. She felt hyper aware, as if she knew where every person in the hallway was, where every empty space around her lay open.

That did _not_ stop her foot from bumping into someone's bag behind her and having Sophia's fist slam into her face. Another fist slammed into her stomach, followed by a knee and an attempt to sweep her feet

It didn't hurt at all. She didn't even feel it as Sophia danced back, recovering from being unable to make her fall as she threw a straight punch at Taylor's face. Nothing. She felt nothing, even as her head rebounded slightly.

And from the looks of it, Sophia realized it. Her eyes widened, then narrowed as if eager.

Already they were drawing attention, since this was taking way longer than it should have already

Emma was saying something about her being unfeminine. The hypocrisy boggled the mind.

"Holy shit!" an annoyingly familiar voice cried. Taylor caught a glimpse of Greg with his phone out. "Did you see that? Hebert's a cape!"

Time seemed to freeze as Taylor broke into a panic. This was it. She was busted. Even the memory modification power she had wouldn't work, the crowd was too big. Crap, this was it, her life was over. Emma and Sophia were going to lie about her, Emma's dad would put her in jail, she'd go to the Birdcage, they'd learn the fires were all her fault, she'd be given as a human sacrifice to the Fairy Queen, her dad would be arrested and go to jail too, and then she'd have to escape to break him out and they'd have to go on the run together and then there would be nowhere for them to live but inside her pocket dimension trying to eek out a living via subsistence farming, and she'd have to go outside to steal crops and livestock to feed themselves because damn it she wasn't going to give up her hamburgers, and then she'd have to kidnap Fugly Bob because only he would be able to do it right, and that would get her a kill order because Fugly Bob was one of the few things that made Brockton Bay worth living!

Oh, she was rambling. Absently, Taylor recited _Invictus_ to calm herself down. It wasn't really her thing, since in her opinion it was too US Marines and filled with such a titanic sense of overblown ego and self-importance that made it such a favorite of highschool teachers, but she had to concede that the wordplay was very good for all that, and nicely evocative.

…

Wait, why was time still stopped? Did she accidentally use her power? Wait, no, she couldn't move either, despite the fact she still felt vaguely hyper-aware of where everyone was. What was–

Taylro firmly strangled that rhetorical question. No time to waste with her power being a moron. She needed to think quick! She needed a plan! Could she use her emulator to mass modify everyone's memories? No, apparently her stronger emulator could only do that on an individual basis, and there were too many people in the hallway. She'd run out of power before she even got half of them. And she was a hero, it wasn't like she could kill them all!

…

She was a hero, it wasn't like she could kill them all! So NO KILLING.

…

 _ **DEFINITELY NO KILLING!**_

…

 _ **NO KILLING AT ALL! FOR ANY REASON! Bad Taylor! Stop that!**_

…

Ahem. So, memory modification or erasure was out, and she still couldn't believe her Master powers were so uselessly limited. Really, why were most of her Master powers for weird compulsions? Granted, they were useful weird compulsions, and she was still looking forward to calling out "Stop! In the name of the law!" at someone and the looks on everyone's face when they actually _do_ stop, but still…

…

Wow, her train of thought was running a little long. Taylor checked to make sure that, yes, she hadn't accidentally stopped time and that, in fact, none of her powers had gone off.

Okay, plan! No convenient Master or Stranger power to get her out of this. Using any of her Mover powers to leave would be an admission of guilt. Trump powers were currently situationally useless, as were her Tinker powers. DEFINITELY no Blaster, Striker, Breaker, or Shaker (those that did not significantly alter the landscape killed you or drove you insane) powers either, for any reason, as it wouldn't help the situation at all! Even if it WOULD make her feel better!

…

Not that it would make her feel better or anything. Nope, nope, nope. Because that was wrong!

…

Ahem. Thinker powers? They were even more useless than usual, especially the treacherous one that was incapable of understanding rhetorical questions. Taylor dubbed that her very last resort, though given her options, it was a resort on a very short list of one. Changer powers? No, going Lung wouldn't do any good, and neither would turning into some other kind of monster. As to shapeshifting, who could she turn into that would get her out of this?

…

This frozen moment of time thing has been getting rather long. Taylor checked again. Nope, still not accidentally activated her times stop, all her charges of power were accounted for. Was this what they called 'Bullet Time'?

…

Perhaps she _should_ stop time and use a Mover power to go back home? Get her ice sculpture, turn it into a projection, switch it for her and let Sophia beat it up? No, that wouldn't work. For one, it was untested. It might not bleed right. It might ALSO not bleed at all, apparently. All this time, and she hadn't taken into account she might have a _defensive_ Brute power to go with her not needing to eat, drink and breathe. She tried to recall the precis of her powers her Thinker power had given her so long ago, back before she realized it was a backstabbing traitorous moron. Ah yes, there it was, an enduring forcefield-like effect that protected her from being clubbed and stabbed to death but would be overcome by, say, really heavy machine gun fire, if she was very unlucky. And her costume-slash-armor probably help mitigate a lot of the force too.

Ugh, she was so busted. One hit and not going down or bleeding might be excusable. The rest? No. That was too obviously _not normal_. Especially not for Taylor Hebert. Ugh. _What could she do, claim she was someone else?_

…

Power, you are forgiven. Let bridges be mended and friendship be restored.

All right, what did she need? An alibi for Taylor Hebert. Her ice sculpture could mostly cover that, especially if she was feeding it lines. What else? Convincing people she was someone else... there were some in her usable powers, and her emulators had something that her lesser emulator could easily mimic. They were all self-directed and relatively long-lasting, so it shouldn't be noticeable. In fact, it would help sell her ruse. After all, Taylor Hebert wasn't charismatic, or a speaker of any particular note. What else?

…

Ah. It looked like it was time for the huge seven-league step after all.

All right. Time to do this. She reached for a power–

And time started moving again. Or at least, it had never stopped, but suddenly her thoughts were moving at the same rate as the rest of the world and not just churning in a hyper-compressed moment. Frantically, she activate her time stop instead, augmenting it in her panic.

Time stopped. Properly, this time. She collapsed on the floor, shivering. Okay, that had been close. Taking a deep breath, and noting how much charge she'd lost in augmenting, she moved to where she'd been standing before, moving into the same position and activated her powers. A Thinker power to bestow insight so she could craft her words for maximum effect. A slight Master power to make anyone who found her attractive more likely to believe her (probably wouldn't work, but she was stacking the deck here!). Another Thinker power to augment this one action, and another to alter her mood, to give herself a sense of courage and improve her morale.

Wow that was strong! But it appeared to be working! And now, the power from the lesser emulator!

!

Holy shit!

Okay, she was ready! She through one last charge, letting it surge through her for just that hair of strength! She channeled every image and video and recording she had ever seen of Legend! She remembered all her hours as a hero, facing criminals, talking to police, finding the Merchants, going to the PRT and the bank, buying children those ice-creams, getting that cat out of a tree, helping old people cross the street, and focused on how that person, that superhero, was completely different from, and absolutely not Taylor Hebert in any way!

 **[1d20+21+5+6+4+4+20+1d12!** _ **91!-!-!-!-!]**_

She dismissed the time stop!

She stood straighter, straightening her glasses before crossing her arms as she looked at the girls with Emma with Legend-ary disapproval, and not sparing any for the bystanders who saw and had done nothing but watch! "All right, _enough,_ " Taylor said, her words matching her impression! "More than enough, for certain. Frankly, this is disgusting." She ignored Sophia's next punch with a disapproving but ultimately dismissive look! "I am certainly glad this was brought to my attention. Given this blatant and public assault, the other accusations leveled look much more plausible." She gave Sophia a level glare as the girl struck her face with an elbow! "Please stop that. You will only hurt yourself."

Sophia punched her face again!

She sighed and when Sophia next struck, she grabbed her by the wrist! She locked her grip as she altered her self through her helmet and deactivated the her armor's disguised form! Her hoodie unraveled and fell away, revealing her vest and golden cloak as the rest of her clothes reverted to armored silk! Her glasses spread across her face, changing into her helmet as she activated it again! Her helmet stationed the same but she got a few inches taller as she shape-shifted into a taller, fuller-bodied form that happened to be a modified Marilyn Monroe, because of course! The change increased her strength enough she had no problem locking Sophia in place with one hand!

Sophia gave one last tug, then fell still, apparently recognizing her! Good! This made it easier! "You are… Miss Sophia Hess, I believe? And that would make you Miss Emma Barnes?" Taylor said, voice cool and totally not praying inside for this to work! She raised her voice slightly so that everyone in the hallway would hear. She could already see one teacher stopping to stare at what was going on! "My name is Solomon. Taylor Hebert allowed me to impersonate her today due to certain… concerns she had regarding her safety after, from her description, what could very easily be described as attempted murder with toxic waste at the beginning of this month. I had originally intended to merely gather information to ascertain the sincerity of her claims, but given your blatantly unprovoked assault on my person, the slander that preceded it, and the clearly coordinated choreography of it, Miss Hebert's quite frankly distressing accusations are much more easy to believe."

She turned towards a suddenly very pale Emma, surrounded by girls who despite being too terrified to move who were trying their best to look like they had absolutely nothing to do with the redhead despite still standing next to her! "Miss Barnes," she said! "I would like to ask you and your other friends to come with me. I believe there is someone we need to speak with about certain... allegations. I am told your father is a lawyer. Taylor said it was a recurring theme when you alleged your capability to perjure her father with false accusations to ruin his livelihood. Tell me, do understand the meaning of the terms 'culpability' and 'accessory'?" Taylor really hoped she'd used those terms even close to the ballpark of right! Judging from how Emma seemed to sway, she figured it was close enough!

"We're going to Blackwell?" one of the random, interchangeable bitches asked, her voice quavering!

"Not at all," Taylor said! "Assault is a police matter. The principal has no say over it. Please do not try to run. You will only tire yourself." There was a thump as one girl seemed to just fall to her knees! She tried not to take glee in that!

….

"And that's when you took them all to the front office and called the police," Agent Gregg said, tapping his pen on his notebook as Taylor paused in her, of course, edited retelling.

"To be quite honest, I expected at least one to make a break for it and run," Taylor said. She suspected that her, quite frankly, overkill stacking of powers to get everyone to believe she, Solomon, was MOST DEFINITELY NOT TAYLOR HEBERT, had also convinced them they were, in fact, accessories to attempted murder. "How are they, by the way? At least one of them seemed very shocked by my appearance and taking the place of the girl they thought they were actually bullying. "

"Shocked is something of an understatement," Agent Gregg said, "but they should be fine. Eventually."

"I take it the police called the PRT because of my involvement?" Taylor said.

"They did," Agent Gregg confirmed. "And we'd really like to know how that involvement happened. Superheroes don't usually involve themselves in cases of high school bullying."

"Prolonged harassment," Taylor corrected coldly. "According to Taylor Hebert," and wasn't it strange to talk about herself in the third person? "they've been persistently bullying her since literally the first day of high school, gradually escalating. And possibly attempted murder if some of the things I've researched about the school are connected to what I think they are." Which it was because it had happened to her!

"That would be up for the police to decide," Agent Gregg said, then lowered his voice a little. His tone changed slightly, becoming a _hair_ less professional and markedly warmer and personable. "Though between you and me I'm calling bullshit if they don't."

Taylor nodded, and only the act of pretending to be someone actually heroic kept her from reacting more.

"So, how about telling me why you _did_ get involved?" Agent Gregg said.

Taylor allowed herself to fidget slightly, as if uncomfortable. It was excellent method acting. "Before I begin, I should warn you that this relates to events in my civilian identity. As such, I might have to get a little… vague about certain details to protect myself."

Agent Gregg, about to make an annotation on his notes, paused briefly in his writing. "Are you sure? You don't have to reveal anything if you don't want to."

"It's needed to provide proper context," Taylor said, trying to project heroic sincerity even as she plotted out the lie she had spent most of 20 hours crafting. "Like you said, superheroes don't usually involve themselves in cases like this. You could say I did it for personal reasons."

A part of Taylor was mildly impressed at how the PRT agent managed to give the impression he was giving her his complete and undivided, sincere attention while subtly writing just slightly below her line of sight. "And what would those reasons be?"

"When I was in high school, I too was a target of bullying," Taylor said, and if it weren't for the sheer absurdity of the words coming out of her mouth she'd probably have choked at… well, the words coming out of her mouth. "At Winslow, ironically enough. Then it passed as all things did, because time passed and I left that place. I continued my education and at the local university I grew and met a certain teacher, a professor named Annette Hebert." Taylor strangled the urge to giggle in its cradle, then gutted it's mother and ripped out the womb that more it. She couldn't give in to the urge, no matter how hysterical she was starting to feel. Her image of legend was slipping, since she couldn't imagine him lying like this, but that wasn't as important as convincing them of the truth of her story. "Have you ever had a teacher who _gets_ you, Agent Gregg? Who inspired you?"

"I've… known a few I could call that," he said carefully.

"Suffice to say, professor Hebert was mine. I had still been in a bad place after leaving Winslow and she… well, she inspired me to move past it. And I wasn't the only one. She was one of those teachers who loved their subject and made you love it by telling you about it," Taylor said, letting her memories of the times she'd sat in some of her mother's summer and weekend classes wash over her, remembering with bitter sweetness how animated her mother was. "She… she was like a mother to me. I cried for a long time when she died."

Her hands were trying not to clench into fists where she lay them on the tabletop, and she forced herself to relax. "But as I said, life moved on. I had other teachers. I continued attending school. And a few weeks ago, while I was out with a few friends, we met Taylor Hebert out of the blue. We'd all taken Professor Hebert's classes you see, and her daughter would sometimes visit her, so a few of us recognized her, mostly because she resembled her mother." And didn't THAT lie make Taylor wince. Her mother had been beautiful. She… wasn't. "She recognized us as well, some of us. We didn't speak long, and soon parted, but at the time I felt there was something familiar about how she was acting. It wasn't until a little later that I realized she'd been acting the way I had been when I was bullied."

"Could it have been a coincidence?" Agent Gregg said, and Taylor felt a surge of irritation at his dismissiveness. "Perhaps she'd just been stressed?"

"That occurred to me," Taylor said, trying not to grind her teeth, "But still, I felt… not quite indebted, but compelled to follow up on her, for her mother's sake. I contacted her and… well, we spoke and my suspicions were reinforced. So I asked if there was any way I could help. Of course, she held it all in, said it was 'fine', but I'd been there. I knew 'fine' translated as 'in hell'. So I did something stupid and approached her as Solomon, told her I'd heard about her situation from a 'friend' who was me, and offered to see if anything could be done about it. Today was going to be the first step. She'd been out of school for the last month because of something that had happened that she wouldn't tell me about, but I suspect was something _way_ over the line. She was going to leave the house like she was going to school, meet with me so I can copy her clothes, then she'd go back home after her dad went to work while I went to her school to see for myself how bad things were and gather information." Taylor made a face, realized it was wasted effort because of her mask, and hoped it came through in her voice anyway. "I certainly never expected them to ambush me almost as soon as I walked in!"

"Miss Barnes," Agent Gregg said, "claims that you initiated the encounter."

"I'm sure you can easily confirm that against the many videos likely already circulating on the internet," Taylor said. It was a reasonable assumption, in any case. "If needed, one can ask the many witnesses present. And I think that if you believed her, my circumstances would be much more different."

"No comment," the PRT Agent said with a bland smile.

The door opened, and another agent stuck her head inside. "PG, the Heberts are in interview room 5," she said.

"I'll be right there," he said, and smiled at Taylor apologetically. "Would you mind waiting here? Usually this is where we let you go so you can punch Lung in the face or something, but you've been a really good sport bout this, so I figured I'd risk asking. We might have some follow up questions."

"That's fine, I'll wait," Taylor said, which clearly surprised the man anyhow. Was she doing something wrong? "I wanted to see how Taylor was doing in any case. Could I see her after we finish?"

"I'll ask," Agent Gregg said. "Thank you _very_ much, Solomon. Hopefully you'll be able to go soon." He stood up, taking folder, recorder and notebooks with him and leaving Taylor to wait at the table. A few minutes later, someone came to bring her a tepid bottle of water and what was likely a bag of cookies from the cafeteria, which was an improvement over the last time they kept her waiting.

Taylor spent all that time sitting perfectly still and not fidgeting at all. The cookies disappeared, however. Best not to waste even mediocre cookies.

….

PRT Agent Phillip Gregg entered the interview room and paused, giving the Heberts his government-issue friendly smile. "Daniel and Taylor Hebert? I'm Agent Gregg, I'll be debriefing you and taking your statement regarding events. Do you have any questions before we begin…?"

"Yes, I do," the father, Danny, said as Phil sat down. "What the hell is going on here?"

"That's what we're here to ascertain, Mr Hebert," Phil said with practiced calm. He'd dealt with parents afraid for their children who displaced that far into anger before. "You and your daughter aren't in any trouble, but as she was cited to be involved with this morning's events, we wanted to ask her about her perspective, however tangential. I assure you she's not in any trouble, we just need corroboration from her about some things."

"What kind of things?" Danny said, still confrontational but slightly more relaxed at having _some_ assurance who wouldn't need to bust heads to protect his little girl.

"I'm afraid I can't say right now, as it might bias Miss Hebert," Phil said. "We just need your perspective, miss. Tell us what happened. Let's start with what you did after leaving your house to go to school."

The girl, Taylor flinched. She was sitting with her head bowed, shoulders hunched as if trying to look small an inconspicuous, which her height was not helping with. She glanced at her father briefly, a glance Phil noted but chose not to draw conclusions from just yet. "This morning was supposed to be my first day back in school in over a month," she said, eyes down and speaking the the pile of forms at the table, not looking at Phil. This was not entirely unexpected. "Dad and I had breakfast and he asked if I wanted to stay at home, but I said no. So I walked to the bus stop and got off one stop later. Solomon was waiting for me in an alley." The girl swallowed. "She looked like me. I gave her my backpack, she copied my clothes and I told her what classes I had and in what rooms and floors. Then I went back home to wait." The girl pursed her lips, the finally looked up. "Did she hurt them?"

"No, Solomon was very restrained in her response when they assaulted her," Phil said, and noted how the girl seemed to sag at those words. She'd clearly been hoping for _some_ kind of retribution of the girls that had… tormented her. There were probably more accurate words, but they weren't suitable for someone in the PRT to allow to influence his perspective. "However, should anything come up, it will of course be given the full attention of the police."

Taylor's derisive snort showed what she thought of that.

"Can you tell me how you came to be in contact with Solomon, Miss Hebert?" Phil said. "I'd also like to hear your side." Taylor gave him a blatantly suspicious look. "We're not looking to find out her identity, we just want to confirm the timeline of events," he assured her, making a note– but not writing it down– that she seemed to have issues trusting authority. Although given what some of her classmates had 'witnessed'-slash-'confessed to', her not having issues would have been a sign of a much larger issue.

Taylor pursed her lips and reluctantly began to speak. Phil remained attentive, making sure his note taking was obvious. He kept his face non-judgmental, an easy enough task, and sympathetic without looking condescending, which was a little harder, since it was a delicate balance, and the girl was distrustful enough as it was. He could hardly blame her.

Her story mostly matched up, though where Solomon's was either personal or vague, she just omitted. And she was very reluctant to speak on how she had been bullied, clamming up and looking sullen and… resigned. And it made her father upset, which… wasn't helpful. For any of them. Phil dutifully examined his notes in great detail to the exclusion of all else as Danny pressed his daughter for the details of how long the bullying had been going on and Taylor insistently didn't talk about it. Was she just not good at lying, or did she prefer omission to fabrication, as opposed to the Barnes girl?

"Miss Hebert," he said with practiced timing, reminding them he was in the room before it got too awkward. Danny hadn't been handling his end of the conversation very well. "While I understand your reluctance to speak about this, rest assured that given current events, any testimony you bring forward will be diligently pursued."

The aborted laugh Taylor made was painful in its cynicism. "They said the same thing after the locker too, and that went nowhere."

"The locker?" Phil prompted, making a note.

And that was when Phil learned he was in the presence of a horrifying urban legend. The Winslow Locker Girl.

It was times like this Phil wished he worked for a CIA black ops branch or something, not-that-those-existed-or-anything-nope-what-are-you-talking-about. At least in those, you could be reasonably sure you'd be allowed to shoot the scumbag who did stuff like this when you got to them.

"Thank you Miss Hebert, that was very helpful," he said with false calm as years of unfortunate practice kept his pen from tearing the paper as he wrote. "The police will appreciate the chance to link this to an attempted murder investigation."

Yes, sometimes he wished we worked for the CIA or something. Or did field work. Really, some days really got his GERD up.

….

Eventually things were, if not resolved, then at least documented enough for _someone else_ to be to decide whose jurisdiction this was.

For Danny Hebert, it was all a lot to take. First he'd received that strange phone call, then he'd gotten a calling from the PRT asking him to come downtown, saying they had his daughter, that there'd been some sort of incident at the school…

He had assumed the worst, that something awful had happened to Taylor again, and why wouldn't he? The last time had been the first day she'd gone back to school too, after all.

Then things had become surreal.

According to the plain-looking PRT Agent whose face he was already having difficulty remembering, his daughter had somehow gotten that new parahuman who acted like she was taking her cues from Richie Rich and Casper comic books (because no matter what people seemed to think, Superman had _not_ acted like that, he'd been more like a soap opera star in Danny's day) to impersonate her at school, because the parahuman used to know Annette from the university. And had apparently called the police on Taylor's bullies because they had met her at the door and started beating her up.

Looking at the tall cape in the cloak that kept shifting from gold, orange and red, Danny didn't know whether to thank her or yell at her and settled keeping an eye on Taylor as the two spoke in lobby of the PRT building.

"Will you be all right?" Solomon asked his daughter, the taller hero's straight-backed confident stance a marked contrast to Taylor's downcast gaze.

"I guess," Taylor said, making Danny's heart wrench. "Does this mean they're going to be expelled?"

"To be honest, I don't know," Solomon said. "That's up to the school. To be honest, I've never actually pressed charges against someone before. But I believe it gives the police a lead in your specific case, and if you had some kind of tangible evidence, something they could follow up on…" The hero seemed to shrug under her cloak. "I just don't know."

"Then what good was any of it?" Taylor said bitterly.

"The only thing evil needs to flourish is for good people not to do anything," Solomon said, and Danny recognized it as one of Annette's favorite quotes. Quoted from _where_ , exactly, he didn't know. He supposed she really had been a student. From the accusing look Taylor gave the hero, she recognized it as well. "S-sorry. But not even heroes can make problems go away just by showing up and waving our hands. Real progress takes time and effort from everyone involved."

"Then what good are you?" Taylor muttered, turning away. "Dad, can we just go?" she said, beginning to walk away.

Solomon raised a hand as if wanting to stop her, but let it drop and slip back under her cape in resignation. She turned towards Danny. "Sir. With your permission, I'd like to keep an eye on your daughter for a few more days, in case people misunderstand and think I'm her. By now news of this should be on the internet, and fact-checking… is not a priority there."

"I'm not saying Taylor's in danger from the gangs!" Solomon said quickly at the look on Danny's face. "At least, she shouldn't be, and if she is I'll protect her! But people might bother her, ask her questions, that sort of thing."

"I see," Danny said, trying to restrain himself. He wanted so badly to be angry, to yell t this cape, but by all accounts she was the one on Taylor's side. "I'll remember that. And if you're really going to keep an eye on Taylor like you said… then thank you. Its more than anyone's promised to do."

The hero nodded stiffly, then abruptly vanished. Danny looked around, but saw no trace of them. He even passed his hand through where she'd been standing a few times, as if feeling for a ghost, but there was nothing there. Finally he went to take his daughter home.

….

Standing invisible and immaterial, Taylor stared after her father as he walked briskly away from her, still shuddering at the cognitive dissonance of seeing her father apparently angry at her, angry enough to want to take a swing at her. He hadn't, but he'd apparently dearly wanted to.

That had been…

She paused, then pondered. No, there were no words currently in her vocabulary to specify just how [terrible] that made her feel, and even 'terrible' was just a placeholder. She'd probably have to dig through Russian and German for something that came close.

Still, it seemed her gamble had worked. Or at least, it had set the foundation for possibly working…

 _No one noticed when she stopped time. It had been a risk, but she'd waited until there were no eyes on her. it helped that most of the girls she'd 'asked' to come with her to the principal's office had been crying and absorbed in their own misery– she tried not to be satisfied about that. It wasn't a very heroic thing to do, after all– and Sophia had taken a break from glaring at her to murmur to Emma. Honestly, she'd expected the girl to make a break for it or something._

 _With eye contact broken, she didn't have to worry about anyone noticing she was standing in a different position with no movement in between, so she had teleported home. The ice sculpture she'd been working on had been stashed in the basement, in a state of temporal stasis. A tarp had been thrown over it so that, in the unlikely event that her dad went down there, he wouldn't notice the life-sized chunk of unmalting ice that looked… mostly like her. The hair had been murder, and she'd sort of given up partway. The chin was a bit too pointy, and the forehead seemed too wide and high. Hopefully she could fix that later. Grimacing, she place her hand on the ice sculpture and tapped a 8_ _th_ _tier power, letting it begin to affect the likeness._

 _An hour later, an exasperated Taylor stomped upstairs and came back down with a kitchen chair and a thick brick of a book. Damned stupid power that needs 12 hours to take effect…_

 _11 hours later, Taylor was slightly annoyed to see that, yes, the chin was too pointy and the forehead too high and wide. Her dad would_ definitely _notice something was wrong._

 _Also, her projection wasn't moving. Taylor sighed._

 _After going back to the school, putting a temporary illusion that looked like her where she'd been standing, going back home, dropping the time stop, and reapplying it once more with her projection included with her in the effect, Taylor was finally able to see how well it moved._

 _"Yeah, this isn't going to fool anyone," her new projection said, staring at Taylor's face as she looked at her reflection in the shine of the tinted visor. "Got anything in there to fix this?"_

 _Taylor was a bit uncomfortable at how casual her projection was with its nudity, and handed her the clothes she'd readied. "Dress first."_

 _The projection rolled it's– her– eyes, but took the clothes. With a murmur and a gesture, she was wearing the clothes. "Good enough?" the projection said._

 _"How many powers do you have?" Taylor inquired._

 _The projection frowned thoughtfully, and Taylor recognized the look she got when she was taking mental inventory. "Not a lot. I only have up to 6_ _th_ _tier powers, and about half the energy per tier to use them. No charges, no forcefield, no Thinker power, reduced capabilities all across the board. And I don't think I heal."_

 _"Hopefully you won't need it," Taylor said. "I need a body double, not a sidekick."_

 _"Who are you calling a sidekick, old woman?" the projection scoffed._

 _"You want me to fix your face or not?" Taylor said._

 _The projection rolled its eyes and leaned forward. Taylor grabbed her face in both hands, tapping a 3_ _rd_ _tier power to change the projection's appearance._

 _ **[1d20+11+10+1d12! 30!]**_

 _Much better._

 _"Get some shoes on. One way or another, you have a performance to give," Taylor said as the projection felt at its face and peered at her visor for its reflection. "And stop checking yourself out on my head!"_

 _"How are we keeping our stories straight?" the projection asked._

 _Taylor paused to consider that, then readied two 6_ _th_ _tier powers. "I'll be whispering in your ear," she said, putting her hand on the projection's head again to link them, then made it stick. Really, she'd have thought having a projection would at least come with pre-installed mental remote control powers. After all, the previous projections she'd made had been like that. In some ways, her powers were kind of cheap._

 _And then it was simply a matter of making up the right story. To that end, she spent the time left on the timestop in her room, scribbling notes as she brainstormed her alibi, checking for plot holes, editing and crafting the lie. She kept the story simple for the sake of believability, and practiced telling it several times._

 _While she was doing this, she had her projection upgrade her boots as a test. Suffice to say, it was a success. She'd still have to complete her belt, but this opened up possibilities…_

 _And then it was show time!_

….

The car ride was silent, which gave Danny a pang. The past few days, Taylor seemed to be making an effort to connect with him, which by itself made him feel guilty as sin. For his part, he wasn't sure he was doing a good job of responding, but things had seemed hopeful when they'd fixed up the house that weekend, and now…

He wished Annette was here, the same way he'd done at least once a day ever since she had… ever since.

It was midafternoon by the time they got home. He felt a pang at the lost hours he could have been working but not much. Taylor needed him and no matter how angry he'd become at some of the things he'd heard, things he was still having difficulty comprehending– Emma?-!– he was going to try and–

His train of thought slammed into a herd of buffalo, derailed, and was dragged along by its inertia and mass in a flaming snake along the ground before falling off a gorge and exploding when it hit the bottom as he realized there was already someone in his house. Lunch for two had been prepared on the table, though it seemed cold. The cloaked figure who sat there like she had a right to be in his house made the muscles on his back tense, and he scowled.

The scowl faded into confusion as Taylor moved to stand behind her and, with both hands, gently lifted up the hero's helmet.

"Dad," both Taylor's said, their voices blending together, "We need to talk."

….

 **\- To be continued…**

….

A/N: And so, the power that isn't written down in Taylor's character sheet appears. And it's a legitimate part of having the powers of a Pathfinder Wizard! I dare you to tell me otherwise!

And yes, she used Limited Wish to Cast Glibness. Or as it should properly be called, Summon Bigger Bullshit. Complete list of spells used after Time Stop, in order, are: Bestow Insight, Seducer's Eyes, Greater Heroism, Grand Destiny, Limited Wish-Glibness, and Surge.

Fun fact, Taylor rolled her first 20 in that scene. So if it seems like she gets away free and clear, it's because a higher power SAID SO! The 20 does no lie! Guess what her Surge roll was?

I wanted to make it proper Rashomon-style with the scene jumping between what Solomon is telling the PRT to what actually happened, but it turns out my patience and writer-fu aren't strong enough for that yet. So I jumped straight to a flashback.

Also, please support the TvTropes page of A Certain Mythic Archmage. It's that button there in my Sig. Please?

So, one thing that always struck me as absurd was how Taylor was always interview by one of the Protectorate or the Director when there's supposed to be a whole building of government agents to do stuff like that. So I decided to take some cues from another hero series. I'm sure you can all guess who Agent Gregg is supposed to be an expy of (since apparently people didn't like crossover characters for some weird reason).

And now, an omake!

….

 _ **Omake:**_ _ **What if Taylor had triggered as the Mythic Necromancer Lich the Whispering Tyrant?**_

….

 **Puella Necro Taylor Archmagica: A Certain Mythic Necromancer Lich!**

….

People weren't quite sure what to make of the Bay's newest hero. For one thing, unless she was the world's most method, die-hard, take her theme seriously goth, she was probably, no two ways about it, almost certainly, to put it delicately, kind of, a little… dead. Sure, it was kind of hard to tell, since her costume– grey boots, stocking-like black tights with a line of purple diamonds going up the side, a modest purple armored silk kilt held in place by a belt, a short white robe over a black ruffled shirt with the collar held close by a purple ribbon tied in a bow and decorated by a purple broach– covered up most of her skin, and the three gems orbiting around her head could be pretty distracting, but in the small area not covered by the black mask that seemed fused to the crown made of black horns on her head, her skin was best described as 'corpse-like' and this was a judgement made by people who've made their share of corpses.

The time Hookwolf had bitten her head off and she'd responded by screaming and having her crown turn into a dragon to chew on him helped. That had been a very short fight. Not even Brockton Bay villains could stomach the sight of what should have been a headless corpse flailing around with its arms open as its head yelled at it to pick her up.

For good or ill, she was also a hero.

Criminals and villains soon learned to recognize the nauseatingly sweet scent of death and decay as the best warning they would get before _she_ appeared, sometimes floating in the air, sometimes riding what was clearly a dead horse with its eyes burning with unearthly fire and the desire to chew on the living. That was if they were still functional once they entered her Shaker effect filling them with absolute terror, which meant they'd have at best 10 seconds before she popped up to terrorize them far more effectively.

And it wasn't even like she was trying to by a terrifying plague upon mankind. During the day, when she suppressed her aura of debilitating terror that filled one with the sure and certain knowledge of the futility of life and the absoluteness of unavoidable mortality, she bought ice-cream for little kids– taking care not to handle the food for health reasons– helped little old ladies cross streets, volunteered at seniors centers– they loved her because they didn't notice the smell and were as close to death as she was, if from slightly on the other side of the line– gave unironic lectures on the need for hygiene and washing ones hands, and gave children pony rides. Sure, it was a murderous, skeletal zombie pony, but that just meant boys lined up too because it was hardcore and heavy metal and whatever they were calling it these days.

The less said about the people on PHO espousing a sudden interest in necrophilia, the better.

A shame about her unfortunate choice of names. If she wasn't so clearly a nice girl, one would have seriously wondered about the mind of someone who called herself The Whispering Tyrant. Some did anyway, and resigned themselves to the thought that if it was all an act, there was little they could do against someone for whom death was an unfortunately persistent case of body odor. Crawler might be hard to kill, but he was technically still killable. How, exactly, does one stop a teleporter that even death didn't slow down?

….

Lisa wasn't sure why she approached the Whispering Tyrant. The girl had been sitting on the swings in one of the many playgrounds she'd claimed all over the city– a claim strengthened by the dark rumors among the criminals of the Bay that insubstantial, human-shaped shadows roamed the playgrounds at night, hinting at worse than death to those who would use the place to conduct illegal business. So far, no one had been reported _killed_ or even harmed by these alleged shadows, but…– which was a perfectly normal sight now. Her hellspawn murder-pony wasn't anywhere in sight, thank God, but that didn't make Lisa relax one bit. After all, the hellspawn murder-pony you can't see is a hellspawn murder-pony who might be sneaking up on you to eat you!

Lisa froze and tentatively glanced behind her. She managed not to scream at the glowing fiery eyeball mere inches from her face. Little kids were crazy if they thought this was fun to ride!

"Um, can I help you?" said the superhero on the swings behind her, in what she probably thought was a tone of heroic helpfulness. "Oh, don't worry about Binky, he's harmless."

…

…Binky?

Taking a deep breath through clenched teeth and trying to ignore the fact the hellspawn murder-pony had _fangs,_ Lisa turned towards the Whispering Tyrant. The girl had a pleasant smile on her pale face now, and a shift in the wind blew the smell of death and decay that not even a very generous amount of baby cologne and… candy-scented perfume?– could cover up. Despite that, the girl looked remarkably alive for someone Lung had tried to cremate several times already. Fortunately, the Whispering Tyrant's own dragon was stronger than the Bay's original draconic resident. That hadn't stopped the now-memetic video of the Whispering Tyrant running around literally on fire crying for someone to save her hair.

"Actually, I wanted to ask if you were all right. You looked… down," Lisa said, eyeing a sheet of paper the hero had awkwardly tried to tuck into her boot. The Whispering Tyrant followed her gaze, and even more awkwardly tried to push it in deeper. Unfortunately, all that managed was to crinkle the paper slightly, letting one corner peek out to reveal the PRT letterhead. "Bad news?"

The hero tried to wave dismissively, a motion made eerie by how her hand obviously popped out of her wrists and flopped around on rotten tendons. "It's nothing. Silly really. The PRT turned down my application for the Wards, said I was over-qualified or something." She let out an obviously fake laugh, and not just because it sounded like she was using an old pair of footballs instead of lungs. "Um, also something about how I was legally dead or something. They said to try again after I'd fixed my legal status, but…" She make a head-shaking, arm sweeping gesture that tried to convey how difficult that was.

Lisa, who was holding on to her power hard because she didn't want to know all the disgusting things it could tell her about the Whispering Tyrant's physiology, could still tell the only reason the girl didn't need to hold back tears was because most of the water in her body was gone. She could think of a LOT of reasons why the PRT might not want to have this girl in the Wards just then– her hellspawn murder-pony, her army of zombie rats hiding in the city's sewers and slowly killing the living rats, the fact that it was something of an open secret she had a _**flying giant shark ghost**_ hiding in the waters of the Boat Graveyard, and let's not forget the rumors of murderous shadow people– but none of that made the sight of the zombie girl sitting slumped in the swings like the kid no one wanted to play with any less sad.

Lisa considered how many diseases were probably festering in the no-doubt rotten flesh under that pale skin, how many pathogens must come out of every forced, unnecessary exhale of dried lungs, and made her decision. "Do you…" she said hesitantly, stopped, then pressed on. "Would you like a hug?"

Some liquid that might have been anything from spinal fluid to vitreous humor began to drip from the eyeholes of the Whispering Tyrant's mask as she looked up at Lisa with a perfectly human yearning just before she found herself with a surprisingly light armful of crying zombie girl.

….

Afterwards, when Taylor got a lawyer to straighten out her legal situation, she applied again and was grudgingly accepted. Also, 'zombie girl is sad, hellspawn murder-pony eat you now' became an internet-meme. Shadow Stalker moved to a different city soon after that.

Also, for some unfathomable reason, Tattletale began wearing a lot of baby cologne and candy-scented perfume. It was probably some very innocent, completely wholesome reason that would not have anything to do with anything. Really.

….

 _"Why?"_

 _"Why what?"_

 _"Why call yourself the Whispering Tyrant? I mean… it doesn't really suit you. You're really more of Casper the Friendly Ghost."_

 _"… when I was in school, there was a girl. She ruled with an iron fist even if her hand never touched another. She ruled with whispers. It was her weapon and her crown. Whispers would reduce her enemies to dust. Would turn ordinary people into something less than human to be ground under her feet. She made me trigger, and I cast her out. Now I seize her crown and title as spoils, and make the evil share my dread of it."_

 _"… shit, that's dark!"_

….

It wasn't enough.

Hundreds, thousands of capes went against Scion, and it still wasn't enough. Foil could hurt him, and every hero on the field knew it and were keeping her armed, mobile and alive, but it still wasn't enough. The seemings and illusions of the other fallen entity kept him unbalanced, but that wasn't enough to overcome his rage.

"Where is she?" Dinah asked. "Probability of Whispering Tyrant arriving in the next five minutes?" Nothing. No result. Taylor had long since made herself immune to any precog, any Thinker power.

"She'll be here," Tattletale said. A gold ring shined on her finger. "She'll pull through."

At that moment, reality tore. There was a cry that seemed to tear at her very soul, so filled with _wrongness_. It had no place in this world, and yet was here anyway. Even Scion seemed to think so, for he turned with sudden swiftness, allowing those he'd been closing in on to escape, and recoiled.

Even though his figure was just a projection, the stark horror that came over his features was almost visceral in its honesty.

What came through the _gate_ was an indescribable abomination, surrounded by giant flying ghost sharks. It no longer looked like a flesh garden. It looked like every nightmare H.P. Lovecraft had ever tried to describe, what horror movies tried and failed to convey. In the air, Scion made a motion of clear fear, a move that translated across species and levels of intelligence and space whaleness.

And upon this monstrosity to even Scion's eyes rode the Whispering Tyrant, Purple Skirt flapping in the wind, her crown an indomitable symbol of office. She gestured, and the _**aBoMiNaTioN**_ roared, making Scion step back once more with instincts and superstitious fear even his kind hadn't yet been able to shed, even as anger slowly tried to rise.

On what would be known as Deathless Morning, Scion fought the Whispering Tyrant, who rode on a monstrosity that was his equal as the once-flesh garden rose up, filled with the dark and blasphemous instincts of all Taylor's creations.

And the dead fought to devour the living for its master.

….

 _ **Omake Epilogue**_

….

 _The sun of the morning has risen! This is the dawn of a new age! The Hero of Humanity died again, protecting the smiles of the people, but her legacy has been inherited by these unbelievable children! Born of the hero who saved the worlds, they are the Dawn of the Deathless Morning!_

 _Vampire of Evocation! TaylorRed!  
Yuki-Onna of the Black Blade! TaylorBlue!  
Banshee Eldritch Scrapper! TaylorYellow!  
Ghost Cleric! TaylorPink!  
Dullahan Druid! TaylorGreen!_

 _ **Necro Sentai! Taylorangers!**_

….

FYI, Taylor-Simu's stats can be found in the same place as Taylor's stat sheet.

Please review, C&C welcome.

Until next time, this is Shadow, signing off.


	7. The Big Seven League Step

A/N: Don't jinx it, don't jinx it, don't jinx it…!

….

Toaru Majutsu no Taylor-chan: A Certain Mythic Archmage

by Shadow Crystal Mage

Chapter 6: The Big Seven League Step

Disclaimer: Worm created by Wildbow. Pathfinder by Paizo. All hail Gygax!

….

"Dad," Taylor said, the words echoed exactly behind her, "We need to talk."

And so begins the big seven league step.

Danny stared.

"Um, first," Taylor began as her projection placed her helmet on the table next to her, "I should probably come clean. So… dad, I'm a superhero. Not official yet, but I'm planning to register it soon, apparently it'll make it easier for the PRT to pursue the assault charges against Hess on my behalf, according to Agent Gregg."

Her dad blinked.

"Also, that isn't me," Taylor continued, pointing at her projection.

Danny looked at the simulacrum.

"Hi," her projection waved. "I'm not real. I mean, I'm physical, but I'm not the real Taylor, she is."

Taylor nodded a little inanely as her dad moved his attention back to her. "ER, I'm sorry for the act at PRT headquarters, but I needed to make sure to convey to absolutely everyone listening that Taylor Hebert was definitely not a superhero," she said. "Even though she is. Er, even though I am. Sorry, I've been thinking in third person for over twenty four hours and no sleep. It's getting to me." She'd had time to take a nap in her time-accelerated pocket dimension, but it had been a long time stop. "Er, I made a late lunch? We can talk while we eat."

Her dad gave a little shake of his head, as if resetting from whatever system error had come over him and stared at the food. "S-sure. Sure, let's eat." He glanced at the projection.

"There's no point in trying to feed her," Taylor said. "She can fake eating, but since she has no internal organs, it just goes to waste, you know?"

"Yup, I'm all solid inside," the projection said, knocking on the side of her head.

As her dad sat down, Taylor shifted, trying to get a bit more comfortable, and the magnets holding her cloak in place popped of. She made a sound of frustration that made her dad glance at her. "Sorry, it's not you, it's this stupid cloak! I though the magnets were a good idea for when someone grabs it, but the darned thing keeps popping off when I sit down!" she said, standing up and grabbing the offending garment. With quick, efficient gestures, she folded it up and set it on one of the other chairs as her projection got them some water to drink. Signing, she sat back down. The chair was slippery under her ass because of her suit's silk. Huh, she thought that had been because of her cloak back in the interview room.

There was an awkward silence as they served themselves as Taylor ordered the simulacrum out of the room and keep an eye out. She wasn't concerned about eavesdroppers and people seeing through their windows. She'd set up an illusion around the house to keep anyone outside form seeing or hearing her, one that the projection could now take over for her as she ate.

They ate. Awkwardness intensified.

"'S good," her dad said after the second spoonful.

"Thanks," Taylor said.

They ate some more.

"So, you're a cape?" Danny said in a voice that seemed a little too level. "Since when?"

"Since the hospital," Taylor said, matching the too-level-ness. "That's when I noticed it first, anyway. Realized I could do _this_." She picked up the serving bowl between them with her telekinetic third hand, raising it up and down gently. Her dad watched, mostly following with his eyes. "Then I figured out I could do more."

"Oh?" her dad said, spoon moving a bit too slowly. "Like what?"

"Well, I figured out I didn't need to eat, drink or breathe if I didn't want to," Taylor said. "And I can turn myself invisible. You saw that, remember, I did it at the PRT building?"

"Ah," her dad said, nodding.

"Um, then it turned out I had a thinker power that answers rhetorical questions, and it told me I had a lot more powers than just that," Taylor said.

That gave her dad a little pause. "You have the power to answer rhetorical questions?"

Despite herself, she chuckled. "No. That power can't seem to tell if a question is rhetorical, so it answers them anyway. It's like the straight man in a comedy who doesn't get a line is a joke. I once wondered what's the worst that could happen and it told me in vivid detail of a plausible way Behemoth might be setting the planet up to explode from the core outwards. So yeah, it's very smart, but also a bit of a moron." She laughed again.

Okay, laughing! Laughing was happening. That was good, right?

Her dad was giving her an awkward smile and taking another bite of his meal.

"So yeah, I have a bunch more powers than that," Taylor said, aware she was borderline inanely babbling. "Used a few to make my costume. It's really nice. My cape lets me walk on walls and my helmet lets me turn into Marilyn Monroe."

For the first time in this conversation, her dad seemed to perk up. "Marilyn Monroe? Seriously?"

Taylor grasped that straw with both hands. "Sure! Here, let me show you, " she said, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand as she grabbed her helmet and tried to get it on her head. It took her two tries. "Okay, one, two, three!" She activated the helmet.

The helmet seemed to flow, shifting until it became a crimson headband with a little silk rose on the side. Her hair had turned blonde, short and a mark appeared on her cheek as she gave her dad a wide smile with deep crimson lips. "Ta-da!" she said, in a voice that wasn't hers.

There was no applause. No, of course not.

"Whoa, that's… something," her dad said as Taylor smiled awkwardly in a decidedly non-Marilyn way, and her headband reverted back into a helmet. When she took it off, more carefully this time, it was Taylor Hebert's face again, looking a little sheepish. Her father seemed to understand that was a little less than the reaction she was hoping for and added, "That's… wow. That's real impressive, Taylor."

"Thanks," she said, awkward and childish and unreasonably glad to show off the trick to her dad. "It's really useful." Not knowing what else to say right now, Taylor ate, shoving a two spoonfuls in and chewing through it. She swallowed. "A-anyway, so um, I've been a cape for a little over a week now. I though you should know since, well, you've seen me and uh, after today, things are likely to get complicated, and it would be much easier for both of us if I come tell you this now. Because of what happened this morning."

Her dad's face darkened a little at that. "What _did_ happen, Taylor?"

Taylor coughed. "Short version is I forgot I had a forcefield and it ended up pushing my bullies on their ass. And someone noticed that and… to make the short version even shorter, I used my powers to make an alibi about being impersonated by a cape, who just happened to be me."

Her dad opened his mouth. He paused. He closed his mouth. He tried again. "That doesn't really explain anything."

Taylor's head drooped. "No, it doesn't does it? I'm so bad at this."

She checked her powers. There was a power for transferring memories, but it was only memories a minute long and… _what the heck?_ She had that? Why was it a lower tier and conveyed more information than the memory transfer one? Argh, stupid arbitrary powers!

"Let's try again," Taylor said, holding out her hand to her dad. "Take my hand and I'll show you what I mean."

Hesitantly, her dad reached forward. "Is this a mind meld thing?"

Taylor frowned before vaguely recalling that old show her parents used to wash. Her mom had some books about it in her shelf, but it had never really interested Taylor. What was so special about a space elf in a blue shirt? "I guess? But it's more like I tell you a bunch of stuff in an instant, complete with pictures."

Her dad pursed her lips, but took her hand.

She activated the 2nd tier power, sending him visions and snippets of her morning and almost getting outed. How being punched didn't hurt, wasn't even something she noticed. The timeless moment when she made her plan. Making her projection, sending it to the PRT. And then, because there was room, she gave him context. The night she took down the merchants. The efforts she went to tracking them down, flying around in a timeless night to find their drugs and through that, their strongholds, such as they were. She threw in the talk she had with Velocity, the highlights and summary anyway, about the rules of engagements to finish out the time.

Lots and lots of information crunched into a hyper concise ten minute explanation complete with ten minutes worth of visual aids, complete with her feelings at the time they happened.

Danny jerked, tried to stand up, tripped and hit his head on the table.

"DAD!"

….

Thankfully, it turned out Taylor hadn't given her dad a stroke. Just that ten minutes of pure information hits like the wrath of Alexandria when it's all cramped into your head in an instant. Taylor got her dad an aspirin and made a note to start working on liquid matrix power vectors for a para-enhanced pharmaceutical.

Yes, that sounded like a good Tinkerbabble name for them. That was her story and she was sticking to it.

"You okay?" she asked as her dad lay on the couch.

"Getting there," her dad said, rubbing his head. "They didn't have hangovers like this on Star Trek."

"If it's any consolation, it was my first time," Taylor said. "I didn't think it would hurt so much when I put it in."

Her telepathic connection to her projection, inactive since she'd told it to go maintain the illusion around the house, repeated the words she'd just said back to her.

Taylor flushed as her dad blinked. "SORRY! That didn't come out right!"

"Ah," her dad said. "Yes, things might have gotten awkward." A pause. "You really didn't feel it when that girl punched you?"

"Nope," Taylor said, shaking her head. "And it wasn't the helmet either, they were glasses at the time. No, I just have a sort of low-grade forcefield. It'll stop a knife and most handguns not meant to go through action heroes. I considered trying to stab myself to show you, but I was worried you'd hurt yourself trying to stop me."

Her dad was still. "You were the one who took down the Merchants," he said, and Taylor got the sense he was having his own sort-of flash of omniscience, putting together what she'd shown him with what he knew, realizing what it meant. "The whole gang. In one night." There was a tone in his voice that might have been awe or horror. They're not that different. It's all in the revulsion.

"Yup," she confirmed. "They didn't even know I was there until they were caught."

" _You can stop time._ "

"It's very boring in there all by yourself if you have nothing constructive to do. And I don't think I so much stop time as move so fast it's like time is stopped?" Taylor said, now getting a little worried. Her dad's face reminded her for that crazy German in the old move just before the magic box melted him. "Dad? You okay?" His eyes were closed, and he was breathing hard. It sent a spike, no, a huge Simurgh dropping from the sky of worry through her. "Dad?" she said. "Are you okay? Look, it's fine. I'm fairly certain my body stops aging or something when I do that, so I won't suddenly grow older from using it or anything."

Danny levered himself upright. Taylor reached out to help him, but he waved her away, putting his head in his hands. Hesitantly, she stepped back and sat on the armchair next to the sofa, waiting, if not patiently, then with determination and purpose. She was keenly aware her cape and helmet where in the next room. A check with her projection confirmed that the illusion was still up.

Eventually, her dad said, "I need to go," he said.

That… wasn't what Taylor had been expecting. "What?" she said, surprised.

"I need to get back to work," Danny said, pushing himself up and heading for the door, one hand dipping into his pocket for keys. "I can't make sense of this right now. W-we can talk about this when I get back. And you're to stay at home. No leaving the house until I get back."

The front door closed as he approached it. The lock turned with a click.

"Why can't we talk about this now?" Taylor said as the door leading to the kitchen closed behind them, locking too. That one was her projection. Locks were hard when you weren't looking at them. "We've here, and you've already taken the day off."

"Let me out Taylor," her dad said. "I need to get to work."

"Do you really? Or do you just want to get away from me?" Taylor said.

Her dad spun, looking shocked and… ashamed. Her insides roiled. _No… no no no no nonononoooooo.._

"Taylor, please," he said. "I can't… I can't deal with this right now. I need to go to work."

Her fists clenched, and she forced them to relax. Was her dad shutting her out? No, no, no!

"If you need to think about this, that's fine," Taylor said, voice managing to be calm. "I can understand that. But you're not going to work, and you're definitely not driving."

Raising her hand, she snapped her fingers.

The world went utterly, utterly silent. All the little ambient sounds, the winds, the vibrations, the cars going by, everything you didn't notice and took for granted, every sound of a living world…stopped. In its place was the sound of their breathing, the beating of their hearts in their chest, and the ringing in the ears one only noticed in perfect silence.

"Will twenty hours do?" Taylor said in the perfect silence. "Go, walk around. And if you touch anything, put it back where you found it. I'll go make us something to eat for when we get hungry."

She turned and headed into the kitchen. Behind her, she heard the front door being unlocked.

….

She took her time making the food. Even sandwiches didn't take that long, however, and her experiments with panini by using lots of jolts of electricity to get two pans hot and pressing a cold-cut sandwich between them didn't take as long as she'd thought. 45 minutes later, she walked out of her house, her helmet a pair of glasses on her face, a bag of several sandwiches and her cape over her shoulder, and took to the air.

She flew in a leisurely way, heading in the general direction of the Dockworker's Association. The only wind was her hitting the air with her face, the only sound the bag swinging on its strap. It was always eerie in the time stop. She half-expected some kind of eldritch monster to secretly be living here, which for some reason would be predatory and try to kill and/or eat her for no logical reason. Fortunately, reality was not a badly written Stephen King novel, if only because the monsters had more hard and fast rules to their abilities than 'psychic powers'. She was alone but for what she had brought with her.

She found her dad picking stuff off the ground and leaving them stuck in the air after he let them go. Taylor was impressed. Using some pebbles, discarded plastic bags, pamphlets and leaves, her dad had made a reasonably recognizable house. Her dad looked calmer now. Taylor figured he'd already gone through the horror, awe, and existential crisis oft realizing his relative unimportance in the grand scheme of things as he looked upon a still, silent world, the same way she had. Especially since he was now in the 'messing around with stuff' stage. He tossed the paper cup he held in his hand. It locked in midair as soon as he stopped touching it.

She landed some distance away, giving him a chance to see her as she walked closer. He looked up, but went back to what he was doing. A car that looked vaguely like the one from the caveman cartoon sitcom from when she was younger joined the house. "Feeling better?" she asked.

He paused, sighed. "I… don't know." He looked around, his expression overwhelmed.

Taylor nodded. "Walk with me?" she asked.

Danny glanced at what he'd been building, then began to pull the pieces closer to the ground. Taylor helped. They walked away from an orderly pile of garbage.

"It's so quiet," Danny said, almost whispering, as if in a movie theater.

"Yeah, that's what happens when you're the only thing moving in the world," Taylor said in her normal speaking register. It seemed obscenely loud, here, but damn it, the ringing in her ears was annoying! "The air itself isn't moving. We can stand here all day and the sun will never move. Really useful if you're looking for something you want to stay still. Gets kinda lonely by yourself. Really good for working on your singing voice, though. And napping. Not a very restful nap, but it's still a nap."

Their footsteps were the only sounds as they walked.

Finally, her dad sighed. "So," he said quietly. "You're a cape?"

Taylor nodded. "Yup."

They walked in silence for a little longer.

"Tell me about it?"

….

"…then I had to lie my ass off to convince people that Taylor Hebert and Solomon were two different people," Taylor said. "It's one thing to lie with words, but lying with body language, word choice, stance… I got weird there for a second. Thank goodness I never had to be in the same room with my projection. We were able to work out a script for meeting each other, you saw that thing in the lobby, but anymore and I don't know if I could have been able to do it."

They sat on the roof of one of the buildings downtown, looking out onto the bay. It had been a long walk and an equally long conversation, but they had hours. They'd climbed up the building like spiders, sticking with their hands and feet on the sheer, smooth glass. Her father said he'd always wanted to go mountain climbing, but had never had the guts.

Her dad finished his sandwich, staring out over the city. Finally he said, "Isn't it kind of hot?"

"No wind," Taylor said. "You need time to be moving for wind. Hot sunlight, however, is everywhere."

"Ah," her dad said. "View feels kind of overrated."

Taylor looked out over the city, stiller than death. Absolutely nothing moved but them. Even the breadcrumbs that had fallen from their sandwiches hung in the air where they'd stopped making contact with them. "Yeah, the timestop kind of ruins it. But it looks really good at night. Want me to take you later?"

Her father didn't answer, instead looking thoughtful. Finally, he sighed. "So what happens now?"

"Now that we're on the same page, we _really_ have to talk." Taylor said. "Because things might be getting complicated."

Her dad gave her a flat look. "That double impersonation alibi wasn't complicated already?"

"Oh, it was," Taylor said, trying to sound cheerful. "Only now it gets worse."

"Worse," her dad said flatly.

Taylor nodded. "I've _pretty_ sure that I convinced people in school and _maybe_ the PRT, but that still leaves rumors and the internet. So, while officially Solomon and Taylor Hebert aren't the same person, that's according to the government. People on the internet, and people at school talking at instead of to each other might not get the message. So people might still think I'm a cape. Even though I'm not. Except I am."

"I'm beginning to see what you mean by complicated," Danny said, rubbing his head.

Taylor nodded. "So, at worst, some people might still think Taylor Hebert is a cape, and let's ignore the fact I actually am one for now. Except the major groups in the city are the ABB, who are all Asian and so are unlikely to recruit me, and the Empire, who… well, might recruit me or might kill me, since Solomon sounds kinda Jewish."

"Christ," Danny said, rubbing his head some more.

"Eventually, yes," Taylor said, and Danny paused, parsed that, and gave a snort. "That's the worst case. People coming to our house to either recruit or kill me. Which is problematic, because if they show up, well, I'm strong and tough, but you're soft and squishy. Way squishier than I am."

Her stilled, a determined look on his face. "Taylor, I'm not– "

"Dad, no offense, but you'd squish like a tomato being run over by a car," Taylor said gently. "I wouldn't. I won't just be a car, I'll be a James Bond Tinkertech car with all sorts of fancy weapons and features. I'll be _fine_."

"I'm not going to leave you alone," her dad said determinedly.

"No, of course not, you're going to find a phone and call the PRT to come while I beat the crap out of them very gently so I don't end up killing them," Taylor said. "But that's the absolute worst case scenario. The rules of engagement make it clear attacking me at home would be a blatant violation."

Her father's features twisted in distaste. "I'm still don't believe that. It sounds…" Danny made a disgusted noise as if all of an internet forum had a raging debate on their opinions on the so-called unwritten rules, with many long and blistering derails, quotes and eventually yelling at each other until the mods came and told everyone to shut up, leaving some poor, innocent original poster to wander back in and drop his coffee as he wondered what had happened to his thread while he was asleep. "I mean, seriously?"

"I wouldn't know," Taylor said diplomatically. "Haven't met enough villains to judge. I admit it makes sense as a format, and it seems to be holding out given that the villains haven't killed all the heroes to the last man, woman, child, relative, friend and college roommate yet, but I don't really know enough to have an informed opinion. Regardless, even if the worst case scenario is unlikely because New Wave hasn't been murdered in their homes yet, we should still plan for it. And right now, the plan involves giving you protective gear so if it does happen, you won't be as squishy and can make that phone call. Which is partly the reason we're having this conversation, because it'll be easier to give you that gear if I don't have to slip it on you as an innocent daughter-father gift and beg you to please always wear it for good luck. Now I just have to tell you it's a forcefield that keeps you from getting killed."

Danny nodded slowly. "Makes sense. But won't it be obvious if I'm wearing a forcefield?"

"If it's obvious you're wearing a forcefield, we already have bigger problems," Taylor said. "Then there's the second-worse case scenario: people who _do_ think Taylor Hebert and Solomon are different people and try to use you or me as leverage against 'her'. In practice that's pretty close to the worst case scenario, but we'll have to do it such that we don't out me, which kind of makes it harder than the scenario where they think we're the same person. The rules of engagement _should_ also prevent that, but… " Taylor shrugged. "Best to plan our own security."

Danny muttered darkly under his breath, and somewhere legions of forumites felt themselves nod as they endorsed his opinions on the 'usefulness' of the 'unwritten rules'.

"Dad, really, I don't think challenging a social contract enforced with parahuman powers is the best use of our time," Taylor said. "Besides, as far as anyone knows, the father of a 'definitely-not-a-cape' shouldn't have such strong feelings about it, because it would definitely have nothing to do with them."

Danny frowned and looked like he wanted to mutter darkly some more, but eventually let it drop… for now (for it never sleeps, so mods and original posters must always be vigilant). "All right, what comes after that?"

"Well, if we don't get unwelcome visitors, I guess we have to go on pretending I'm not a cape," Taylor said.

"Even though you are," her dad said, a small smile flickering at getting to run the gag this time.

"Yup," Taylor said, actual cheer in her voice this time. "Which means some time soon I'll have to go to the PRT and register as an independent. Which comes with a stipend, so between my powers taking care of repairs around the house, hopefully repairs on the car and new clothes, we'll be better off then before, but not so much it'll be noticeable."

"If you're going to sign up at the PRT anyway… " her dad began.

"No, dad," Taylor said, frowning. "First, Solomon is supposed to be in college, so she can't be a Ward. Second, I don't think they'd let me into the Protectorate without me outing, so they'll know I'm not in college and bust me down to Ward anyway. And that means implicitly admitting that Solomon might be in the same age as Taylor Hebert, which makes lots of what I did today pointless in any case. Third, registering doesn't mean working for them. Not everyone person who owns a gun works for the military."

"And why didn't you sign with the Wards _before_ today?" her dad asked.

"I wasn't telling the government before I'd even told _you_ ," Taylor said.

"Oh," her dad said quietly.

"Besides, the Wards are a government institution, like school," Taylor said. "Given what I've seen, the government clearly shouldn't be allowed near people my age. They're really incompetent about it."

Her dad grimaced, but didn't disagree. Given how he'd often mutter darkly about city government, he really wouldn't have any ground to stand on if he did. "I don't like this, Taylor."

She lined up the words 'you have no way of stopping me, puny human', dragged them out the back, had them shot, lit the remains on fire, ground the bones to ash, used the ashes in a dark and blasphemous ritual to seal away their souls, and sealed the souls into a copy of Romeo and Juliet while the bone ash was mixed into cement that was shaped into a ball and throw into the Marianas Trench while she lit Romeo and Juliet on fire, consuming it to the heat of literary criticism and analysis. "Would you rather I do nothing when I could be helping people?" Taylor asked instead. One can mostly depend on the Socratic Method.

"Honestly, I want to say yes," Danny said. "You're my daughter Taylor. You're the most important thing in my life."

There rose such a number of kneejerk responses to this that personally taking them out the back and shooting them proved too time consuming, resulting in her having to devise a mass execution assembly line to deal with such gems as 'then why weren't you there for me' and 'I'm not a thing' and 'well you're too weak for your opinion to matter' and kill them all in an orderly, methodical, mass-produced fashion that would make McDonald's proud. The pause that rose from her doing this might have been taken for patient waiting. Or it might have actually been patient waiting.

Taylor wanted to sigh. Friends again or not, her power was so annoying when it had a point. Stupid issues.

"This isn't the sort of thing I can live with myself if I ignore it," Taylor said. "I want to be a good example. If doing the good thing, the right thing, were easy, we wouldn't have villains."

Her dad slumped. Sighed. There was grudging agreement in that sigh.

"Look at it this way," she said, trying to lighten the mood. "It's probably a sign of good parenting I'm insisting on the selfless, morally upstanding course of action that brings little benefit to myself."

"At least _one_ of us thinks this is good parenting," Danny muttered. He sighed. "I wish your mother was here."

For a moment, Taylor was silent. "I wish she was here too dad," she said finally. "What do you think she'd say?"

Her dad sighed again. "Damn it," he muttered. "I just want you to be _safe."_

Taylor sighed. "Dad, look at me."

As her dad turned to look, Taylor through herself off the building. Her dad let out a cry behind her as she tapped a 8th tier power. She felt her body change, her limbs and neck elongate, her body thicken. Her clothes and gear fused to her, becoming part of her body as wings erupted from her back. Metallic scales that range from bronze to blue covered her body, covering her like armor. She spread her wings, watching the air, though to be honest that was unnecessary. Her flight power was still active, and she used it to rise back to the same level as her dad, flapping her wings theatrically. She hovered to be face to face with him, and a part of her noted how he looked so small, so defenseless. Turning her head, she opened her mouth.

There was a crack of thunder as a line of lightning blasted from her jaws, cracking through the air in a blazing line before losing cohesion about 120 feet out. Satisfied, she turned back to look at her father. He'd turned pale.

"Dad," she said, and they were probably both surprised her vice still sounded the same, even if coming from a throat many times bigger now. "I can turn bigger than _Lung._ Where I'm standing is probably the safest place in the city."

Slowly, Danny nodded. "Okay… that actually _does_ make me feel better."

Taylor blinked. Really? Of all things, _this_ was what made him agree? "Why? I mean, I expected to have to argue more."

Danny snorted. "Taylor, this is Brockton Bay. Even the Nazis know: don't piss off the dragon."

Well, when he put it that way…

"I still have a few minutes on this," Taylor said. She tried to smile, felt facial muscles move. Hopefully it was close enough. "Wanna go flying?"

Twenty minutes was too short when you were having a good time. Still, Danny made it back to the ground in one piece before Taylor timed out, and that was the important thing.

….

The sun was still in the same place when they finally walked back home. They'd passed through office buildings a few times to enjoy the air conditioning and cool off from the unrelenting, windless day.

"So, still need to go back to work?" Taylor said as they walked down their street.

Her dad yawned. "Probably not a good idea," he admitted. "We've had a full day. We should get some rest."

Taylor hummed. "Well, if you feel up to it, there's still one more thing I can show you," Taylor said.

"Oh?" her dad said warily.

"I can show you my secret lab," Taylor said, smiling the smile of someone who has something really cool they finally get to show off properly

"Taylor, you didn't dig a room under the house, did you?" Danny said.

"Better," Taylor insisted. "And now that you know about it, I can finally build a proper door for it."

"Taylor, did you build a secret passageway to the roof in your room?" Danny said.

" _Better,"_ Taylor said.

"Taylor, did you build a hideout in an abandoned warehouse?"

" _Better,"_ Taylor emphasized. "Seriously dad, it's the coolest thing ever, you'll see."

They reached home. Pushing open the door, Taylor let her armor shift into regular clothes as she pulled off her cloak and folded it. After double checking to make sure no one was even slightly looking their way, she dropped the time stop.

Sound returned like someone had opened a door to the rest of the world. The wind blew.

Taylor held out her hand. "Come on," Taylor said. "Let's see my lab."

They left the world. Behind them, the simulacrum patiently maintained the illusion around the house.

….

After dinner, which was quiet and kind of awkward, and Taylor really hoped that was just tiredness, though she admitted it was unlikely, she went into her pocket dimension to work on her belt for the day. Then she set about planning where to put the new permanent portal into her lab where no one else could enter it. Hopefully without breaking something load bearing.

Then it was back to bed for some real sleep after a very, very, very long day.

Bliss.

Tomorrow came too soon.

For moment, Taylor lay in bed, seriously considering sending her projection in her place. Eventually, she dismissed the thought as unworthy of her but _man_ was it tempting. Seriously tempting. A huge pile of unattended chocolate-tempting. Ugh.

Eventually she rolled out of bed and, with some reluctance, put on some regular clothes instead of her armor. That her and her cape were marked with tags that would teleport them to her if needed them, stuffing them into boxes for the sake of her power's arbitrary limitations. Her simulacrum was already working on a pouch that was bigger on the inside for exactly this sort of thing. It would hopefully be done by the time she got back.

She was waiting with breakfast for her dad, whose smile was a little strained.

"Are you still going to school?" her dad asked.

"Third time's the charm," Taylor said with a sigh. "But if something happens again, would you mind terribly if I drop out and cape full-time until I can get my GED? Because it's probably a sign or something."

Her dad grimaced. "We'll see," he said, and for once Taylor didn't think it was one of those 'we'll see's that meant 'no'.

"I'll be planning the door in the basement," Taylor said. "Don't worry, I'll make sure I don't have to fix the house afterwards."

"Tell me what you're going to do first," her dad said. "You might dig into the septic system."

Taylor blinked, then shuddered. "Wow, thanks for telling me that. That wouldn't have been fun to find out about."

A small smile flicked over her father's face. "Glad I could help."

Taylor smiled too. "Oh, and I've thought of a way we can save on gas," Taylor said. "Our car runs on diesel, right? Because I have a power that lets me make _lots_ of vegetable oil…"

The benefit of small steps if that they're less likely to strain groin muscles.

….

Taylor spent the bus ride to school working on dropping her force field. Well, that was a lie. She spent most of it talking herself into dropping her force field. It was suitably depressing that she didn't have to much fake the body language for 'Taylor Hebert' to distinguish her from Solomon. She figured she'd relax it in a few days, if she decided to stay in school. Head down, sad face, hunched shoulders, mood of existential despair and surrender mixed with smoldering, helpless anger… **[1d20 + 21! 29!]**

It fit like a glove as she got off the bus and walked the distance from the stop to the school.

Wow, she was going to hate this. If she didn't find a way to be laughing on the inside by lunch she was liable to set something on fire and blame it on Myrddin or Orthinus…

NO! Bad Taylor, no villainous thoughts!

"Taylor Hebert?"

Taylor looked up.

There was a news van parked in front of the school, and a blonde a woman with a deformed face– it took Taylor three looks to realize it was meant to be a smile– in front of her, holding a microphone. Taylor vaguely recognized her as someone who worked at the local affiliate of a national network, the one with the endlessly repeating cartoons about the fat idiot dad and his idiot family.

"Miss Hebert, could you tell us in your own words about the _**SHOCKING**_ events that took place in your school yesterday in another _**SHOCKING**_ example of the PRT being unable to reign in parahumans from destroying the lives of innocent people?" the woman said intently, shoving a camera in the general direction of Taylor's face.

Oh. Taylor knew she'd forgotten something.

Does this count as a sign to just quit school?

….

 **\- To be continued…**

….

A/N: Yay! We now have a TVTropes page! Now we just need entries…

….

 _ **Omake:**_ _ **What if Taylor had triggered as Mythic Archmage Summoner With a Dread Gazebo?**_

….

 **Shin Taylorgami Tensei: How To Train Your Dread Gazebo!**

….

" _I am thou… Thou art I… From the sea of thy soul, I come… the dread beast that lies upon the grass gnoll, Gazebo!"_

….

It was a perfectly ordinary night in Brockton Bay. The moon was shining, the drunks were singing, evil was flourishing as good people did nothing, thieves thieved, hussies hustled, druggies drugged, Lung Lung'd, Nazi's seemed completely unable to grasp the concept of socialism and Undersiders undersided.

Currently, they undersided through a dark street, trusting to Bitch's dogs to not hit anything as Lung Lung'd behind them. He'd stopped running a while back and to their horror had worked out primitive jet propulsion, shooting fire out of his hand behind him to propel himself forward. While clumsy, it had the advantage of speed and power, and _he_ had the advantage of being too tough to let little things like impacts against building slow him down.

And then they came a to an intersection, and in the dim moonlight, shining white…

"Oh, shit!" Tattletale cried. "It's her!"

Standing incongruously in the middle of the intersection was a gazebo. At least, what _appeared_ to be a gazebo.

Everyone in Brockton Bay knew better. Well, everyone who'd survived, anyway. That idiot Alabaster had been trying to convince everyone it was just a pavilion structure often found in parks and gardens right up until it pounced on him. He really shouldn't have turned his back on it.

Siting in the gazebo, leaning back on what appeared to be perfectly ordinary white lawn chair at a perfectly ordinary white table, was _her_. Was she? Bah, damned GED correspondence course! However you conjugate it!

The dogs, predictably, skidded to a stop just short of the thing, sending the Undersiders flying over their heads to land roughly on the pockmarked street. Thank goodness there weren't any puddles. For some reason he dogs did _not_ like that thing, and no amount of training on Bitch's part could overcome it. Which Tattletale thought made perfect sense. She didn't want to be near that thing either. In fact, why wasn't she scrambling to her feet in panicked terror and running for dear life? She attempted to do so.

There was a murmur, and the perfectly high friction coefficient ground went buttery under her, landing her on her ass again.

"Heeey, Undersiders," _she_ said, drawing out the greeting, her smile wide and creepy and reminding Tattletale of a picture of String Theory she'd once seen where she threatened to blow up the moon. Behind them, Lung had worked out the reverse gear and was frantically jetting away as fast as he could while his flame lasted, his body beginning to shrink. Coward! Come here and give us a horrible death like a man! "Nice of you to drop by."

There was groaning and not because the rest had also fallen on whichever body part had hit the ground when the Bay's resident Eidolon Package had done whatever to friction. "I protest," Regent said from where he was sprawled on the ground. "That was bad and you should feel bad. Also, does this come off? Because white is a fucker to clean."

There was a laugh at Regent's commentary and Tattletale tried to ignore the treacherous flipflops in her stomach. Stupid stomach. Stupid sexy hero. ARGH! Damn it, why must she be so ridiculously hot?

"Why must you cause trouble so?" _she_ said, looking down on them from her seat. The chair did not move, fused as it was to the floor. "This is Brockton Bay. I thought better of you, Grue. The others are from out of town, but you of all people should know you don't piss off dragons."

"It works for you," Tattletale snapped, and totally not because she wanted _her_ to pay attention to her. Nope, not at all.

"Yes, but my powers are the most bullshit in the Bay. Most people get only one or two cows worth of bullshit, I have the entire livestock population of Australia," _she_ said.

It was very unfortunate that truer words had never been spoken. She was no Eidolon, but in front of her gazebo it was hard to tell the difference.

Ah, the gazebo. Tattletale tried not to think about the gazebo. Oh, it _looked_ like some kind of harmless park feature, but no one was fooled now. It had suddenly pounced on too many criminals for that. Sometimes, it actually _had_ been an ordinary gazebo in a weird place, like on a roof, a construction site, in a vacant lot, or parking lot, which had either been quickly vacated or some brave soul had set the gazebo on fire. Tattletale was sure it was part of some elaborate ploy to keep people paranoid about whether the gazebo they saw was _the_ gazebo.

In the beginning, they hadn't known what it was. Just that a gazebo had for some reason appeared in a very weird place. In the morning, it would disappear, only to reappear when night fell. It was weird, but it seemed harmless. People had relaxed.

No one was sure what the first incident was. Stories conflicted. Some say Merchants had used it to sell drugs. Some say Hookwolf had used one for an impromptu dogfighting or cage match ring. Others said a perfectly ordinary crime, like a mugging or attempted rape had happened near, in or around one. Shadow Stalker claims she'd been minding her own business, checking her mask was on right.

Then it happens. The gazebo comes to life. What had seemed stairs leading up to it turns out to be a tongue. Legs had appeared, folding out from where they had been tucked underneath like it was a turtle shell. And it attacks.

It had trampled over Hookwolf like a train over an unfortunate victim the hero hadn't been able to get off the tracks. Lung's fire hadn't burned it, and it had grappled with him to a draw until it had managed to drag him into the water, where the table had turned. The less said about what happened to any Merchants caught in its path, the better.

Though Tattletale had to wonder… why disguise itself as a gazebo?

But as terrifying as the gazebo was, _she_ was worse. She was just so charming, so convincing, so interesting and likeable and hot (not that _Tattletale_ thought she was hot or anything, just that some people seemed to think so. Regent! Yes, Regent sometimes wouldn't shut up about how she made him both terrified and hard!) that it was sometimes hard to forget she was a hero and thus the enemy. And that was _before_ she brought her terrifying Master powers into it.

Normally this would get her branded a villain and dropped like a hot orb of molten metal. EVERY villain in the bay knew she had Master powers. She used it on them enough that there was no way they wouldn't know. Except every time the villains had denounced her, she'd step up and say, with a perfectly straight face and a charming smile that no, she _didn't_ have master powers. _AND EVERYONE WOULD BELIEVE IT!_ Even the villains would believe it until the next time she used Master powers on them! _Even the villain that had just denounced her not 5 seconds ago believed it!_ Tattletale could still remember them breaking into a PRT public gala attended by the Wards and Protectorate, the mayor and most of the big shots in the city for the sole purpose of denouncing her. She'd been there and acted shocked at the accusation as Tattletale had not just denounced her but had given a _presentation!_ With Powerpoint and video and bibliography and dates and times and analysis. The reporters there had taken notes, ARMSMASTER had set aside his halberd to take notes, and everyone had been glaring at _her_ by the end.

And then she'd just stood there, smiled and said, "Oh no, they're obviously mistaken, I don't have Master powers," and everyone had nodded along, torn up their notes and agreed that it was all a mistake and she didn't have Master powers. Even TATTLETALE had nodded along, and she'd been the one to give the two hour presentation!

And then her gazebo had fallen from the skylight to eat them and it was all a whole bunch of running after that.

Then the next day, she'd used her Master powers again and _**ARGH!**_

Now she had them at her mercy, _again!_ They looked at her with dread, wondering what fresh hell this would be.

 **[1d20+42+1d12! 72]**

"You're not a supervillain team," Persona said. "You are actually knights in the service of the beautiful princess Tattletale, who is on a quest to find True Love's Kiss. I'm not anyone you know either, just a helpful stranger passing by."

Yes, that made perfect sense. Princess Tattletale nodded at the completely factual and sensible thing the helpful stranger just said.

"Now, be off, as Princess Tattletale has an arranged meeting with Grand Duchess Vista of the PRT Empire to see if they're romantically compatible," Persona said as the slippery sensation disappeared from the ground. She pointed. "It's that way, by the way."

Princess Tattletale stood with dignity, smoothing down her royal tights. "Thank you, helpful stranger. Come, my knights! Let us be off to meet with Grand Duchess Vista to see if she possesses True Love's Kiss!"

As they trooped off, they heard cackling laughter behind them. A helpful stranger, but obviously quite mad.

….

" _The minor villain team known as the Undersiders was arrested today after they stormed PRT headquarters and attempted to molest an unnamed Ward. Details are scarce…_ "

….

"DAMN IT, SHE DID IT TO US AGAIN!"

….

 **Omake!**

….

 _Meanwhile, somewhen in the future…_

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a literature professor in possession of a bookshelf must be in want of a sorting.

Taylor had no intention of throwing anything away, really. But the general state of disrepair of her mother's old collection of books had, ignored by both of them, become something of an issue since… since, especially given that no one was riffling through them on a weekly basis anymore. Dad generally didn't prefer those kinds of books, and Taylor had her own stash. The few times since… since she'd borrowed something from there, she'd made sure to put it back exactly as she'd found it. That is to say, leave it dusty and messy.

So, as something of a bonding thing, since they were still working on those, Taylor and her dad were working on cleaning it up. While Taylor could easily use her powers for this, it is also a truth universally acknowledged that shared experiences build bonds, and they weren't in a hurry. Her dad would occasionally stop and reminisce to her about one or another of the books, how they reminded him of something her mother had said or done or told him. Sometimes, it was a shared memory, and they reminisce together.

It wasn't all English Lit books, however. Her mother had been an eclectic reader, as was right and proper and had been passed on to her daughter. Mixed in with brick-like Russian translations were pocket books, novelizations from back when novelizations of movies sold pretty well, some illustrated children's books Taylor remembered being read to her before she had graduated to mid-century Christian allegory disguised as power trip isekai stories, said Christian allegory isekai stories, books of Greek myths with the dirty bits left in, German fairy tales (also with the dirty bits), mass produced American fiction that were apparently _all_ dirty bits…

Her dad picked up one of said books of all dirty bits, did a double take and laughed. "Oh… Taylor, look! This guy looks like you!"

Taylor took a look as he turned the front to face her and had to chuckle. It was one of the older books, with a cover like a painting. On the deck of a pirate ship was a man in a white shirt holding a cutlass and posed dramatically with a busty blonde on his other arm. His shirt was open to the waist, largely rendering it extraneous. With his long, curly hair (which somehow managed to stay that way despite whatever had drenched him and the blonde to sufficiently render their clothes strategically transparent) he did kind of look like Taylor.

"Wow," she said, amused. "He looks girlier than I am. Maybe that's what I need to look like a girl. Turn into a guy."

"You'd need the right shirt though," her dad said, chuckling a little as he set the book aside. Taylor, however, grabbed it, staring at it intently.

"Hmm… " she said, fingering her glasses.

….

"Am I a bad father for thinking you actually _do_ look girlier like this?" Danny said, a little torn between amusement and whatever feeling like a bad father entailed.

"It just proves the premise of this exercise," Taylor said, equally torn between feeling unfeminine and vindicated.

They looked at each other and settled for the proper middle ground when faced with the absurd and incongruous. They broke out laughing as Taylor looked at herself in the mirror again.

This wasn't the first time she'd turned into a guy, as she'd tried it when she'd first added the feature to her helmet just to see if that 'different center of gravity' thing was real (she didn't feel a difference, and didn't know how to feel about that) but this was the first time she could see her face when she did it. The face that looked back at her was not recognizably Taylor Hebert, though it was clearly some kind of close family relation. That wasn't important. What _was_ important was that, in the fluffy white pirate shirt that opened to the waist and dark pants her armor had changed into (and she felt a little self conscious at having her chest exposed like that with her dad), she did, in fact, somehow look girlier.

Her dad, still chuckling, held up the book. "How about the pose?"

Snickering herself, Taylor tried to match it, trying to stand with her legs spread wider than her shoulders, an imaginary sword in one hand and an equally imaginary busty blonde in the other, giving the mirror the kind of smoldering look the guy on the cover had. Her dad collapsed into more helpless laughter as Taylor swayed and nearly fell over, and she soon joined him, leaning against a wall for support.

"T-that look can't possibly have any appeal," her dad said, trying to control himself as his sides heaved.

"M-maybe she's seducing him for his hair secrets," Taylor proposed, and her dad's laughter redoubled.

"H-he's going t-to need more than just a pick-up line with that look," her dad agreed.

Taylor chuckled, than grabbed the imaginary blonde in her arms and gave her an intent look. "Let me take you away from all this," she said in her most comically suave voice, then broke into giggles.

Her dad groaned a little, still laughing. "Ugh, no, that line never works. I think it's a joke more than anything else."

"Oh? Then what lines _do_ work?" Taylor asked, grinning and letting the imaginary blonde go.

Danny was winding down, though an occasional chuckle still escaped him. "I'm not sure I should tell you. "

"Come on, tell me!" Taylor wheedled. "How else am I going to know if someone is feeding me a line?"

The laughter cut off, and an uncharacteristically serious look came over Danny's face. "Hmm…" he hummed, clearly taking the question seriously.

"Look at it this way," Taylor said, posing dramatically again, if not with such wide legs this time. "When's the next time I'll be a son you can teach pick-up lines to?"

Danny burst out laughing again. "Okay, okay," he chortled. "Fine. I will pass on to you the secrets of the Hebert Family Pick-Up Lines. First we're going to need some Hershey's Kisses… "

….

 **Omake End!**

….

 **Chapter Epilogue**

….

PRT Agent Phillip Gregg was a perfectly ordinary government worker, of the sort to be found anywhere. He'd a long, busy day at work and was preparing his report before he got ready to sign off and go back home. Thankfully, nothing had happened that put _him_ up for overtime, unlike some of the others up in Ward Support. Apparently, someone had screwed up and people were scrambling to cover ass and find out what had been done and if they'd been part of it. He wished them well.

He stared at report blinking on his screen. Part of it read 'Solomon shows a personal interest in the well-being of Taylor Hebert, leading me to believe that they have obfuscated the extent of their relationship... ' and went on from there. It was, in essence, a huge hunch. He'd worked at the PRT for a long time, spent time both in the office and field, investigating, interviewing, getting people's words down on paper and sifting the truth from the lies, all minutely aware that anyone in front of him could be a Master or a Stranger or a Ziz-Bomb or some unholy combination of any number of far-fetched, reality-bending powers. He'd learned to tune out the words, to focus on tells and body language and small gestures most people didn't realize they made.

Small gestures some people learned to control.

He thought of young women who called the police, who stayed to give a statement, who was willing to wait.

Agent Gregg selected the paragraph and pressed a button. Then he carefully wrote. Then he reread the report and made few tweaks. He read over what he had written and checked his conscience. Due diligence. No lies. No insubstantiated data without clarification. Nothing but clear facts.

Well, it was just a silly hunch, anyway. No need to make a clearly-troubled young woman's life needlessly more difficult.

Whistling innocently to himself, Agent Phillip Greg saved the final copy of the preliminary report on this morning's strange little incident, a report he knew would within the next six hours probably be in the hands of the ABB, Empire, Coil, Accord, and possibly even the Merchants if they hadn't been blitzed.

He thought of what would make a young woman want to be hero and still take the time to sit in an interview room.

Agent Gregg, face as bland as ever, sent off the report of a clear case of impulsive heroism-of-opportunity, of someone helping a near-complete stranger they only vaguely knew through a dead woman, because it seemed the right thing to do given what was known at the time. He recommended passing on the recorded testimony to the police for further investigation, in the case of Taylor Hebert, and for some security be assigned her in case someone decided she was a point of leverage.

Then he went home, thinking of a relaxing night watching a movie in preparation of doing this all over again tomorrow. And of why he chose to work for the PRT.

His completely factual, truthful, substantiated report flew out into the world, and at no point in it were the words 'Solomon might be Taylor Hebert' present at all.

After all, it was just a silly hunch completely against the testimonies they could substantiate. A wild theory completely against the facts they had on hand. No point in bothering anyone with it.

Phillip Gregg went home, thinking about heroes.

….

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 **Topic: Myrrdin Watch, Thread 97!  
In: Boards ► Boards ► Capes ► Discussions ► Mid-West ► Illinois ► Chicago  
Tomas White ** (Original Poster)  
Posted On Mar 24th 2010:  
Okay everyone, you know the drill. Let's play everyone's favorite game: Where In The World Is The Pyromanic Wizard?

 **(Showing page 325 of 326)**

 **►The Gentleman Tiger** (Verified Legitimate Businessman)  
Replied On Mar 24th 2010:  
No, that can't be him, the building was still standing.

 **►Iron Striver** (Wiki Warrior) (Verified Cape) (Kyushu Survivor)  
Replied On Mar 24th 2010:  
New sighting! This morning in Brockton Bay a news van mysteriously caught fire while following a story at a local school.

 **►MaydayForever!**  
Replied On Mar 24th 2010:  
Yes! The wizard has been found! When he was quiet yesterday, I got worried.

 **►Waga Dairokutenmaou** (Verified Cape) (Verified Saber) (Goetia Survivor)  
Replied On Mar 24th 2010:  
Check again dude, we had a verified apartment fire yesterday.

 **►Marumaru**  
Replied On Mar 24th 2010:  
Wasn't that Dairokutenmao?

 **►SaltRiver**  
Replied On Mar 24th 2010:  
Maybe they were collaborating.

 **►RejoiceYoungMan** (Kyushu Survivor)  
Replied On Mar 24th 2010:  
The news said the event was just a gas leak.

 **►WorldsGreatestGrandma**  
Replied On Mar 24th 2010:  
IT'S A MYRRDIN FIRE!

 **►Access Flash**  
Replied On Mar 24th 2010:  
I don't know, I hear BB has it's own pyro. Some guy named Orthinus?

 **►Maeve2**  
Replied On Mar 24th 2010:  
This cannot stand! No one may challenge our wizard for the title of Arsonist Supreme!

 **End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 323, 324, 325**

….

Please review, TvTropes Entries welcome.

Until next time, this is Shadow, signing off.


	8. The Inevitable Time-Skip Chapter!

A/N: So yeah, fuck game balance, bonuses are going to stack. Even the ones RAW says won't. ESPECIALLY the ones RAW says won't. After all, Taylor is supposed to be OP.

But specifically, all bonuses stack, as long as they are from different sources. So, two Bull's Strengths won't stack, but two Ioun Stones boosting the same stat will. So enhancement bonuses can keep on stacking, even if RAW says they shouldn't. Because that's a game balance thing, and there's no Watsonian reason for a Worm power to act like that… that, admittedly, I know of. Lot's of Doylist reasons, but they call come down to 'game balance', and this is hardly a game we want to keep balanced. Unless the reason is VERY good, I'm unlikely to go back on this.

….

Toaru Majutsu no Taylor-chan: A Certain Mythic Archmage

by Shadow Crystal Mage

Chapter 7: The Inevitable Time-Skip Chapter!

Disclaimer: Worm created by Wildbow. Pathfinder by Paizo. All hail Gygax!

….

The past two weeks had been happily uneventful for Taylor Hebert, having her very own sweatshop aside. Given that for the past year and a half 'uneventful' hadn't been in the same reality as her, much less on speaking terms, this was a marked improvement on the level of golden paving, pearly gates, choirs of angels and scenes where streets are guarded by United States Marines.

Sure, there'd been that ambush interviewer, but given that they were clearly holding on to a case of confirmation bias the size of the moon, she'd felt safe to blow them off, helped by the _totally mysterious_ fire that developed in their van (apparently someone had been drinking and smoking). She'd been given a wide berth by most of the school. A lot of the girls she'd taken to the PRT were absent for the next day or two. Lawyering up perhaps? She wished them the worst.

There was some staring and she supposed some were expecting her to turn out to be a superhero. Yeah, nope. She left her armor at home the first day, and kept it in the handy 'bigger on the inside' pouch her projection made the days after that. With her force field down, was she as reasonably squishy as anyone else. She had to avoid someone wannabee gang kids, but they had no experience with her hiding places and weren't as driven as the Trio, so after a day or two they gave up.

Besides the nondescript who-do-they-think-they're-kidding PRT van that parked on their street and the more descript and paradoxically less obtrusive and subtle phone company repair van parked near the school (or it could have been an _actual_ van from the phone company), there was no sign she was under any for of government surveillance. She'd checked the van in their street with her suit's immaterial mode, and the people there were mostly watching the house and not, say, using any kind of listening devices. The people watching her hadn't seemed very concerned, and had been talking about the importance of orange zest in good scones.

If she'd been an actual normie in need of protection, she'd have been really pissed off about how laid back they were being about this.

The Saturday after she'd come out to her dad, she'd locked herself in her pocket dimension (okay, technically not locked, since there really wasn't a door to lock), and worked on making the forcefield ring for her dad. He'd been a bit hesitant at letting her _do stuff_ to his wedding band, but eventually he'd agreed, trusting her. It took her four days in there to do all the work, sleeping in her pocket dimension while her dad had taken care of some business at the Dockworker's Association.

They spent Sunday using some of her government bounty money, going to someone her dad knew to buy gold and silver coins. The guy they went to used to work in the docks when her dad was younger, and he had some official gold and silver coins to sell. Taylor had been able to check they were real with her power. After that exchange, they'd gone on to the Market, where Taylor had bought crystals and other rocks from a stall of New Age stuff and other odds and ends. He'd been amused at some of the things she'd bought, and very helpful at others, like when she'd been trying to find a good multi-tool to buy.

When she'd gotten home, she invited him to her pocket dimension to test a theory. The look on his face when she'd used the coins as metal samples for her power to make sold silver and solid gold heavy plate armor had been memorable. By her ballpark estimation, the suit of plate armor, already beginning to collapse under its own weight since it was just made of regular gold and not reinforced or engineered or anything, was worth more than three million dollars. Her dad's eyes had bugged when she'd told him that, and watching him try to tell her that she shouldn't try to sell it for money while simultaneously aghast at the words coming out of his mouth and not really believing most of what he was saying as he tried to articulate _why_ she shouldn't was simultaneously painful and funny. The look on his face when she reassured him she intended to use the 183 pounds of pure gold and about 120 pounds of pure silver strictly for powers-related building material was… interesting to watch. It was a good thing he hadn't seen the 900 pound pile of steel that used to be full plate armor for a giant the size of Behemoth. He might not have been able to take it if he'd made the connection.

Her dad had gone to have a lie down and wrestle with his established monetary beliefs while Taylor worked on making a matrix to store her dedicated healing power for external use to let her projections mass produce liquid matrix power vector para-enhanced pharmaceuticals (she _had_ to think of a shorter name that wasn't the obvious) and cheat exploit it to make more matrices filled with healing power.

While her projection– which had quickly became projection _ **s**_ as she began to make a new one a day, having gotten the hang of ice-sculpting now– weren't as strong as her, and didn't have as many powers (so that only made them equal to most capes in the city instead of hilariously outstripping them in every possible way), they could do something she couldn't: spend ALL their time inside her time-accelerated workshop endlessly churning out things. She at best could do 2 days at night when her dad is sleeping, if she didn't patrol. Sure, they had the same weird limit as her– they could only produce one Tinkertech item a day each if it wasn't a liquid matrix power vector para-enhanced pharmaceutical (and the latter didn't benefit from economies of scale for some weird power reason), could only work for 8 hours and needed 8 hours of rest and some sorting through their powers before using them– not to mention it took them longer to make some things, but given they worked more than a week a day for every day she did, in some ways they worked even faster.

She started joining them some nights when she wasn't on patrol (she still hadn't given up on that, despite the fact it was quite apparently a sub-optimal way of fighting crime) staying there to do two nights work of work. She'd expanded her pocket dimension five times, using the orange prism-shaped capacity boosters she'd had her projections synthesized, slotted into her new equipment storage devices.

Wow, that sounded like some video game Greg Veder would yammer about.

She'd expanded her pocket dimension. Well, technically, she expanded one of the two pocket dimensions she had. The non-accelerated one was connected to their basement, the portal hidden a foot deep behind one of the walls carefully chosen to have no pipes or leading to the septic tank, with the wall permanently affected with a power that made it permeable to three kinds of people only: Taylors, Taylor simulacrums, and Taylor's Dads. Anyone one else slammed into impermeable wall. Moving all the metal bits out of the way without compromising structural integrity had been the hard part.

Taylor now had a small lake next to a meadow and a small forest on the other end of the non-accelerated pocket dimension from the basement entrance. Fruit trees, root crops, berries and edible mushrooms grew in obscenely fertile numbers. Her projections had orders to collect what seemed tasty. Anything to help cut down the bills. Their meals now regularly sported mushroom, carrots and potatoes as ingredients. Desert was how many variations of fruit salad and fruit platters she could come up with. So far, they haven't tired of it yet.

The day before she had to register, she brought a cellphone. It was a cheap brick with prepaid minutes and she made sure to store it in her bigger-on-the-inside pouch to keep it cut off from cellphone networks unless she was away from home. She didn't want to be tracked, after all.

She'd gone to register as an independent on the 12th. Thankfully, the PRT had been open. In hindsight, why wouldn't it? Maybe SOME government agencies like Congress and the White House could afford to close on weekends, but the PRT, especially in Brockton Bay, had a lot of work to do. Might as well do all of it. Shared suffering improved morale. Probably helped with moral fiber too.

Registering had been surprisingly easy. She'd handed in the form she'd filled out, it was processed, and she had to wait a few minutes while they printed out her PRT registry card. A lot of the form, like address, tax number and birth details, had been left blank. The person who processed it hadn't batted an eye, as if she fully expected it. His eyebrow did rise a little when he got to the part about 'special skills of interest for consideration'. Taylor wondered if he'd been the one who'd processed Panacea's registration. Huh, _was_ Panacea registered?

And then she had the card in hand, complete with complimentary cheap-lowest-bidder card protector that was more likely to pull the ink off than protect it from harm. Huh. She was officially a hero. Strange, that she didn't feel any different.

Then she sat and waited while they assigned her social worker.

Technically, they weren't social workers, they were 'PRT Registry Contact Agents'. The official primary point of contact between rogues and independent heroes, and the PRT. She had one. Would in a few minutes anyway, once it was assigned. Possibly all to herself though apparently in a big enough city RCAs dealt with the affairs of multiple parahumans. She was lucky in that few in Brockton Bay actually bothered to register. Her contact agent would not be overworked.

Her contact agent was woman named Melinda Wen, who spoke with a slight Boston accent. Someone would say the years had been kind to her, since it had apparently frozen her looks at twenty-five going on middle-age. The only thing to imply she was older than that was some slight smile lines and an air of complete apathy and cynicism. The latter wasn't definitive. This was Brockton Bay, after all.

The first thing that came up was that Sophia Hess had been charged and prosecuted for assaulting her. Huh. Apparently she'd been on probation for something that this violated it so hard she got kicked straight to juvie. The only thing that surprised Taylor was that she'd lasted so long. Her own assault charges were still pending. Taylor opted to let the PRT handle that and hoped her testimony would be suffiecient so she didnt have to get subpoenaed. She didn't even have a lawyer. And wow, so many things were coming up that made her need to have a lawyer…

Later.

The now-officially-if-independently a hero Solomon spoke to her contact agent, pulling out a wishlist of stuff and a similar, if inverse, list of stuff to try to sell to the PRT. Which led to forms to be filled out, because government. Taylor wondered if there were rogues out there under the employ of paper manufacturers responsible for growing new trees to make the paper for all this. Fortunately she'd brought enough liquid matrix power vector para-enhanced pharmaceuticals to cover the requested sample submission. The requested formulation notes would simply have to be covered by the recipe sheet that listed the ingredients she'd used for the matrix (in this case, Mountain Dew, some beer for alcohol, honey and fine silver dust), and gave a short account of the creation process, which amounted to 'I charged liquid with powers, will stick indefinitely until drunk'. An appointment was made for Wednesday regarding her samples and power testing/demonstrating the powers she was offering up for service to the PRT. That seemed remarkably quick, but she supposed they didn't get a lot of Tinkertech from independents. Leet and Squealer weren't really the sort to bother.

The wish list of materials was similarly put into form form. Formated? Formalized? Whatever. Thankfully, Taylor didn't have to order in bulk. In fact, Taylor was mildly amused to learn that the PRT had a materials 'sample book' to be distributed to budding Tinkers for exactly this sort of thing, consisting of little bars of material samples to tempt Tinkers to order. She had to pay what would have once been an outrageous fee for a box of rocks and metals, but given her powers, that was all she needed. She was glad her helmet covered her face, as the huge grin of just having made out like a bandit would have been disconcerting.

Huh. Titanium had a lower atomic number than iron. She hadn't known that.

Single's Awareness Day, that dreaded blight upon the world, happened and was rightfully ignored, as by all right-thinking peoples. Her father and she had cleaned up her mother's old bookshelves and joked about pick-up lines. Some cosmetic sex-changing on her part had been involved. It had been goofy and fun. Goofy fun was something she was coming to appreciate again.

….

" _It literally says Mountain Dew, beer, honey and silver dust," Doctor Barry Garrick (Bio Chemistry) said, staring down at the sheet of paper that, according to the annotation by the contact agent, had been written on the spot. At least they'd had the decency to include the process and proportions, though it read more like a recipe than a formula. That still put it in the upper percentile of organizational skills when it came to new Tinkers. An addendum at the end specified that only an ounce was needed for the final product, and that it was basically a liquid matrix designed to retain a charge of a Striker power that imparted either a burst of cellular regeneration or a weak force field that lasted for an hour (the details there were less precise, with the vague description that it would stop punches but not a baseball bat. It was mildly excused by a post-script explaining a lack of measuring equipment). At the very least though, the submission was unlikely to poison you. Cavities were another matter._

" _At least it's better than the guy who sent a bucket of 'assorted electrified common laboratory chemicals'," Doctor Jay Allen (Applied Physics) said. "Did that actually work?"_

" _No idea, the bucket melted from all the acid before it got to us," Dr. Garrick said. "All right, let's check this stuff for radiation then get it prepped for the spectrometer."_

" _It's just going to be more power bullshit," Dr. Allen said._

" _As long as it's self-consistent power bullshit," Dr. Garrick said._

….

 _February 16, 2011_

Contrary to popular belief, the PRT did NOT have a machine you get strapped to to test your powers. They instead had several different measuring devices that, while made to measure specific things, sometimes need to be used creatively to get a measure of powers. That's what Taylor was told as she brought into a particularly open room with some vaguely recognizable scientific equipment. The room itself was long and tall, and would have made for a decent round of basketball. The ceiling was loaded with a worrying number of different nozzles.

Taylor was there for power testing. That is, that she could deliver on the powers she'd mentioned. They tested with mice. It had been sedated and an almost comically small and precise incision had been made with a scalpel. Taylor had healed it completely with a touch. Another mouse had gotten the same, except it's wound had been cauterized with some kind of acid. Taylor healed that too.

Healing Striker power, documented and paperwork filled out.

Then it was time to test the other thing.

They had to do it in the hallway to test the distance claimed. Judging from how worn out the 'testing in progress' signs they set up were, this likely wasn't the first time. A mouse, sedated, incised and cauterized, was placed in ten feet intervals from where she was at the end of the hall, all the way to 70 feet out.

That done, she fired up her lesser emulator and touched the wall they'd designated the starting point. A symbol appeared there written in light, an identifiable medical cross. She touched it to activate it. She felt the wave of healing energy burst out from the Shaker power, but maybe that was just her.

Her new capacity boosters let the effect last for five hours, something she told the scientists doing the testing. In the meantime, anything that came into its area of effect would be healed of soft tissue damage, as demonstrated when they brought the mouse outside the initial range into it, but only once. If they got injured again, it wouldn't heal them if they went back into the area. When pressed, she'd only been able to shrug and say "Power bullshit, man". Though she'd added that a _second_ iteration of the Shaker power would heal someone already healed by the first iteration. That had led to more muttering. Healing Shaker Power documented and paperwork filled out, with the addendum she could make it more permanent than 5 hours, but they would likely not appreciate having to stick sick people out on a random hallway.

The last thing they tested was the claims of limb regeneration. Once more a poor mouse was selected, sedated and amputated, its limb cauterized by acid. Taylor went to work quickly, firing up her greater emulator. They watched as the limb grew back over several seconds. It would have been faster to reattach the limb, but Taylor could see how they'd need to test to see if true regeneration was possible.

Yes, internal organs grow back too. Also eyeballs. Not sure about excised brain matter, but she saw no reason why not, though what the effects on memory would be she had no idea. Regeneration time without reattachment varied between 12 seconds to 2 minutes. No, she had no idea where the mass came from, though she assumed it was direct energy to mass conversion, unless it was _ex nihilo_. Which would not have surprised her. Power bullshit, you know.

The scientists just sort of nodded and sighed at that. As they should after all, this was the city that had Kaiser in it, who generated high quality steel _ex nihilo_. More potent Healing Striker power, documented. She made sure to clarify that limb regeneration was a completely different power than repairing soft tissue damage, though it did that as well, and that both were useless against diseases, cancers and mental illness.

The doctors were nicely professional, always taking care to note what she said about her power and asking probing questions that made sense. They seemed to understand her exasperation every time she said 'I don't know, that's just how it works'. They probably had to deal with that a lot.

The next day, she was called back to install a permanent Shaker field in the PRT's attached hospital wing. In fact, she installed 5, using a tape measure to work out the most central location and leaving a sheet of instructions on how to properly use it for the doctors, including activation instructions. It was best used in emergency situations, and they had to be careful with embedded fragments as it was likely the tissue would heal around it unless it was excised.

The Shaker fields were free, and Taylor was already planning to ask the local hospitals if they wanted her to install some in their recovery wards as well. The power was PRT certified now, after all!

The contract to supply them with her paradrugs (YES! She finally thought of a good word for it!) for dealing with soft tissue damage, a retainer for dealing with the things paradrugs couldn't like severed limbs and mauled organs, and a supply of Forcefield-Trump paradrugs (and wouldn't it give her business a bump when rumor invariably confused her with the mythical powers-bestowing formulas you heard about on the internet) would be to the tune of $2,000 a pop. The list of 'future products' that included temporary strength enhancers, flight ability, short burst super speed and _walking on water_ , with included price list...

Ugh. This was going to mean lawyers, wasn't it?

...

Yes power, thank you for your input, you've been very helpful and are an important and contributing part of this team.

….

 _February 19,2011_

It was an extremely aberrant and statistically significant day in Brockton Bay.

…

What? Not every day can be ordinary and perfectly average.

For example, on this day, Hookwolf, Stormtiger and Lung had looked into their closets and all independently came to the conclusion that they needed new pants. Theirs was a lifestyle with a high pants-mortality rate, after all, and while they _could_ have just had new ones brought to them, some things a man had to do on his own. Finding pants that fit was one of them. And so each man, for their own reasons, if with coinciding purposes, all decided to take the day off and go to the mall to buy pants.

Unbeknownst to them, Kaiser and Armsmaster were also at the mall, the former because he had a lunch appointment to discuss a Medhall contract being used as cover for a gunrunning operation, the latter because he liked visiting certain stores that sold toys, for children and otherwise, for inspiration (if only for the aesthetics) and amusement. They left the office in the capable hands of their subordinates, Krieg and Miss Militia, who took the opportunity to get some paperwork done while it seemed things were quiet. Fenja and Menja, both also civilian, accompanied their boss as security.

Also unbeknownst to anyone, Victor and Othala were also at the mall as part of an attempt to bond as newlyweds in an arranged marriage. The marriage counseling skills Victor had stolen advised just spending time together, and so both were trying to do that. It was awkward and mildly squicky but determined and sincere as they both tried to make it work. Some marriages had done with less. One would be amazed at what regularly sharing a meal and small talk could do. At the same time, Cricket, in civilian garb, was buying new whetstones and oil for weapon maintenance.

Coil, for his part, needed a new office chair for his secret base, and had decided to select one himself to find one that was comfortable and, this was the important part, wouldn't slip out from under his ass when in costume. In another timeline, he was interrogating Tattletale to find out her latest attempts at insubordination. He was unlikely to keep that one, and so taking the time to select a chair he would be spending a lot of time in was only sensible. Mark Dallon, having remembered to take his meds that day, was at the hardware store buying a few items for home maintenance. Grue was there to buy some paint to fix his place up, partly because it would look better when he applied for guardianship of his sister, partly because the place really needed a new coat of paint.

Kid Win, meanwhile, was buying Legos, partly because he liked them, and partly because he used it as prototype casings for Tinkertech that didn't need containment nor had heat issues before he finalized the design and put them in permanent housings. And even some that _did_ need containment and had heat issues, which was why he needed more. Aegis was buying new socks, because he'd felt the ones he'd had were too thin, especially when in his armor, and now had been a good time to buy. Rune was also buying socks, and more unmentionable things, as not every girl makes going to the mall a grand expedition needing pack mules, a map and the budget of a beloved Scottish billionaire. Take the example of Vista for example, who at the same time was buying shoes. Sensible, hardy shoes, such as a sensible, practical young woman might take before she enters a cocoon and comes out as Mary Poppins. Vista was not at all distracted by the makeup stores. Nope, not at all. Circus was, but only briefly as they made their way to buy material for a new costume.

Gallant wasn't at the mall, as he had a dentist appointment. Neither was Clockblocker, who was with his dad at the hospital, desperately hoping that today was the day Panacea finally got around to him. Alas, this was not that day, as she also at the mall buying socks. And pants too, since the ones she had were wearing out and the ones her sister picked were always too tight. Said sister was at the local university taking a class. A class she unknowingly shared with Faultline. In the same university but in a totally different class, Velocity was taking a class in Japanese, because it only made sense to do so in a city where there was an immigrant Japanese community, and he'd already taken Korean. Filipino he'd picked up in the army from a guy he knew in the barracks.

In the city, only Assault, Battery, Dauntless and Triumph were on patrol, and the latter two were mostly doing a PR lap in the Boardwalk. The former two were patrolling what had used to be Merchant territory, in a futile attempt to keep the other gangs from claiming it. Futile because the other gangs really didn't actually want it, since if it were any good, they'd have taken it from the Merchants a long time ago. With Hookwolf out buying pants and no one else to give them orders, the thugs of the Empire decided today was a good day to stay inside, drink some beer and catch a game or something. The thugs of the ABB, lacking anyone to prod them, stayed inside and did the same. Regent could agree, as he was parked in front of the TV and not planning to move any time soon as a played an online game against Über and Leet, albeit unknowingly. Bitch was tending to her dogs. Tattletale was sleeping in.

No one cared where Shadow Stalker was.

Thus was most of Brockton Bay's finest and worst unknowingly spending their time out of costume. Browbeat was probably there too.

All except one.

Take a wild guess who.

….

Missy Biron was absolutely not just coming from a makeup store, totally not shoving vile, vile makeup under her sensible, hardy shoes as she walked through the mall, debating whether she should eat something or go home. Since the other option was 'home', it was an easy decision. Her journey towards mass-marketed franchise food was interrupted, however, by…

…

What the fuck?

The atrium of the mall was not a place Missy was fond of. Oh, when she first started out among the Wards, it had been a happy place to meet all her adoring fans. As time had gone on, however, it had become a hellish place where she had to meet her, _ugh_ , adoring fans. Some of her most pleasant dreams involved leading Hookwolf and Lung through it and having them tear the place apart.

Today, it contained a nice-looking (she supposed, not that she was into that or anything, it was a purely aesthetic assessment!) girl in white body paint and hair dye with white scarves, tied seemingly randomly on her arms and legs such that they trailed down, handing out fliers. It was the feathers tied into her hair that tipped Missy off. That and people started actively running away from her as she got close. Simurgh imagery tended to do that. She had no idea how Bad Canary got away with it.

Cold tension filled her. Were the Fallen moving into Brockton Bay? Fuck, that was bad, they could barely keep one group with violent, fucked-in-the-head ideology in check.

As she resolved to call this in, someone walked into the atrium. Well, to be honest, several people had been walking in and out all this time, but this person was eye-catching, what with the golden cape and helmet they wore. Vista took several pictures, safe knowing she wasn't the only one. Over the last two weeks, Solomon had been visibly adding Tinkertech to her costume. Several pouches hung from her belt, which had glowing fixtures spaced around it. She wore metal bracers on her arm now, the glowing spots on the inner arm belying their seemingly mundane nature. It was all suitably impressive and cape-ly, and was completely undermined by the bag full of stuff from the hardware store she was carrying. Missy wasn't even surprised. Almost half of the pictures of Solomon was of her going into stores to buy things like it was totally ordinary. Even Glory Girl went to the grocery in civies!

Even as Missy was indignant at the violation of the unwritten rules of parahuman dress code Solomon walked up to the girl in the bikini. Carefully, Missy reached out, feeling the empty spaces that made the world and _squeezed…_

In Missy's ear, she heard, as if she was listening from an inch or two over their heads, Solomon say, "Excuse me?"

The girl turned towards the hero, a smile on her face as Missy put her phone to her ear and tried to act casual and not watching them. The smile froze and she took a step back, holding her fliers to her chest. "I haven't done anything wrong," she said defensively.

"I… didn't say you did," Solomon said, sounding genuinely confused for a moment.

"It's not a crime to dress in a bikini," the girl said, still defensive.

"I'm not sure about the exact legislation," Solomon said, nodding in agreement, "but you seem sufficiently covered, miss."

"This is America! We're free to worship whoever we want," the girl pressed.

"Absolutely," Solomon said, nodding again. "Er, how did we get to this? I just wanted to ask if I could have a flier."

The girl blinked. Missy could practically _hear_ it. "Oh," she said. Then her voice brightened, gaining an excited edge. "Have you come to hear the word of the savior?"

"Oh, is that what this is about?" Solomon said, sounding genuinely surprised. Missy hoped she was just really good at lying. No one could be that dense, right? "I thought you were handing out fliers for some kind of public performance."

Oh, _please_ be just really good at lying.

"Oh, well if you have some time, I'd be more than happy to explain," the girl said happily.

"Actually…" Solomon began to hedge.

"Great!" the girl said enthusiastically. Missy wasn't sure if she was hard-selling or just oblivious. "I'm Nora, by the way. Er, come, lay person, and I shall educate you about the glory and word of our savior, the Pale Lady."

"This… isn't a Nazi thing, right?" Solomon said. Missy facepalmed. The likelihood of Solomon just lying was decreasing rapidly.

"No, of course not!" the girl sounded aghast. "We don't have anything to do with those loonies. Our savior accepts everyone regardless of creed, color or origin, except possibility Sciontologists. And we have no socialist agenda whatsoever!"

"… this isn't one of those nudist cults that worships Narwhal, is it?" Solomon said, finally sounding suspicious. Missy would have raised her assessment of the other hero had Solomon still not been acting ignorant of the fact she was talking to one of the Fallen.

"Those are real?" the Fallen said, sounding genuinely surprised.

"I… think so? They're mostly in Canada, but I hear there are some in California and Florida? Surprisingly popular in India too," Solomon said.

"That sounds awesome!" the Fallen said. "How do you join one? Is there, like a fee? Do you get cute outfits?"

"…it's a nudist cult?" Solomon said, sounding like she'd gotten lost somewhere along the conversation and only just noticed that she'd been talking to a giant caterpillar smoking a hookah. "So no outfits?"

"Oh, I've always been better with casual wear anyway," the Fallen said cheerfully.

"…weren't you going to explain your savior the Pale Lady to me?" Solomon said.

"But we were going to join a nudist cult!" the Fallen said.

"We were?" Solomon said, now and Missy wasn't sure if she should feel sorry for her or not.

"Sure!" the Fallen said. "I haven't been in a nudist cult before. Is it like a sex cult, but with less sex?"

No, Missy was sure now. With a sigh, she pulled out her phone and reported this in.

….

The Fallen girl, Nora, as it turned out, had been in a lot of cults for someone still on the young side of twenty-five. Apparently, she was in Brockton because Mama Mathers had instructed her to "Preach forth to the unbelievers and bring them into the fold!" or something like that. Vista, having had to study up on the Fallen, knew it hadn't been from any need for evangelization (they tended towards kidnapping and conscription, with a side of abusive upbringing) and probably had to do with the fact Nora was, to put it mildly, a ditz. An airhead. Room temperature IQ. Normally, in the Fallen this meant they'd be breeding stock, but apparently they were worried her stupidity would spread into the next generation. Why they kicked her out rather than killing her, Missy wasn't sure. Maybe the girl had been well-liked. Maybe even the Fallen had _some_ decency. Maybe it was all a Simurgh plot.

She was NOT looking forward to the M/S screening that was sure to come from this, regardless of the fact she hadn't gotten closer than 50 feet.

The Fallen had only been the latest in a line of cults Nora had either wandered away from or been kicked out of. Just from listening, she'd apparently been a Scientologist, a Sciontologist, back to a Scientologist again before she'd been shipped off to some Japanese guy living with a bunch of parahuman women in the woods, at least three flavors of sex cults (Missy dutifully reported what details she heard to Miss Militia over the phone, torn between mortification and rage), a new-age hippie cult she left because apparently they didn't believe in flush toilets, the Scientologists again before the filed a restraining order, a commune of creepy albinos that she eventually left because everyone but her kept having screaming nightmares about the empty void of nothingness, _another_ Japanese guy living in the woods with a bunch of parahuman women, an all-women farming commune, Sciontologists again, was a groupie for the Adepts before they kicked her out for some reason, a groupie for Bad Canary before shed been told by the woman herself to 'get lost', briefly worked for Blasto before she was let go for 'upsetting the kaiju' (Missy made sure that was given priority) was taken in by the Herren Clan, traded to the Degureschaff Clan before that little girl on the news had triggered and went nuts screaming about how she would kill God, a commune in the woods led by some redhead who claimed she was Japanese with a bunch of parahuman women, two more sex cults, a brief stint as a Catholic before leaving due to everything being too confusing, before she finally found herself with Fallen.

"And there might be a couple dozen more sex cults in there somewhere," Nora (at some point she stopped being 'the Fallen girl' because the insanity needed a name) said cheerfully. "And maybe a couple more Japanese guys living in the woods with a bunch of women. Japanese guys seem to have a lot of communes, for some reason. Why do you think that is?"

"I… couldn't say," Solomon said, and even through the frankly parahuman politeness Missy could hear the brittleness in her voice. "Maybe they're good cooks?"

"Oh yeah, that reminds me, there was also that commune with the red-headed Japanese guy who was a good cook," Nora said. "Best stir-fry ever. Ooh, can we get stir-fry?"

They'd long-since moved to the food court, with Solomon lending Nora the cloak off her back, seemingly unconcerned about what the body paint would do to it. Missy was sitting 6 tables away, apparently immersed in her phone, space warped to continue listening in.

"Are you hungry?" Solomon asked reasonably. Slow on the uptake or not, Missy had to give the woman credit. She had the patience of a saint.

"Really hungry!" Nora said.

"Then why don't we get you some stir-fry."

Yep, definitely a saint.

….

Danny Hebert heard the steps coming up from the basement. "Taylor?" he called out as he made dinner. "Is that you?"

"Ugh," came the zombie-like moan as his daughter trudged up the stairs into the kitchen, she fell onto a table and just sort of lay there.

"Busy day?" he ventured. An undead moan as of a revenant desiring to feast upon the living answered him. "That bad huh? Food trucks stalking you again?"

"Serial cultist," Taylor said, finally shakily lifting her head.

That gave Danny pause. "What?" he said, not sure he'd heard that right.

"There was this girl at the mall," Taylor began, telling to story of a girl in a bikini and body paint and how she'd eventually been able to lead the girl to some nice PRT people who only wanted to talk to her and ask her a few questions.

Yup, he'd heard right the first time. He _really_ hoped that girl wasn't the daughter of someone Annette used to know. He remembered her stories about the weirdoes that used to just show up back when…

Danny paused. For a moment, he was still. Then he smiled.

"Reminds me of something that used to happen to your mom back in college," he said, a small, sad smile on his face. But it was one of remembrance, not pain. "Their group would sometimes just get these girls who'd just blow in and had no idea what was going on but joined up anyway…"

Enough small steps, and you begin to move. Move enough, and you start to move on.

It was just another extremely aberrant and statistically significant day in Brockton Bay.

….

Kenta stood in front of the mirror, pulling on one of the pants he'd brought and zipping it up. Then winced as he realized he'd forgotten something.

With an annoyed growl, he resolved to head back to the mall and buy new underwear to go with the pants. Bits were delicate, after all.

A pity they didn't make stretchable asbestos pants that didn't look like something a clown would wear. It would solve so many of his problems.

….

Taylor's plan to install regenerative Shaker fields into the Bay's hospitals had hit something of a snag, as most of them asked her to get an appointment with Procurement, of all people. She had, although how this was supposed to go she had no idea. Maybe she should have had it arrange via the PRT. Or through the lawyer she _really_ needed to get one of these days. Preferably sometime soon.

As Solomon, she'd had taken it upon herself to watch over the parks of the city. Cleaning out the trash, repairing playground equipment, making them places little kids would be safe playing at, that sort of thing. It wasn't that hard. It wasn't like some assholes had put glass in the sandboxes or anything. She'd checked. Not that there was much sand left. She'd fixed that too with some creative power use.

That's where she was during daylight hours. Actually, a lot more parents were taking their kids to parks now. Also more ice-cream trucks. And food trucks. In fact, she had a sneaking suspicion the ice-cream trucks and food trucks were coordinating somehow, because they always showed up within 15 minutes of her arriving at any particular park. And she had a sneaking suspicion at least half of them were fronts for the Empire and ABB, and half the rest were owned by the PRT. It was nothing definite, just some little clues and indicators. How the Korean food, Japanese food, and Filipino food trucks would always be on the opposite side of the park from the strudel, custom bratwurst and schnitzel food trucks, the way a lot of the truck workers seemed to have tattoos, the fact that EVERY SINGLE FOOD TRUCK had guns in them… she suspected the rest of the food trucks were owned by Coil or something. She'd tried to make it clear that if they caused trouble there'd be hell to pay, but she wasn't sure they got the message. Did they even know she stole the firing pins from all their guns during a timestop? Eh, it would be a pleasant surprise, just before she sent the T-rex after them.

The ice-cream trucks, thankfully, seemed to be completely independent. Well, mostly independent, one served the ice-cream brand that according to PHO rumor was owned by the villain formerly known as Cold Dish. Was it unheroic of her to think their ice-cream tasted the best?

Between preparing paradrugs for eventual sale to the PRT, bigger-on-the-inside containers to let her carry it all when it would eventually be delivered since she could hardly send it by truck, and building gear for herself, time seemed to fly by. Oh, most of the girls she'd managed to get arrest had all eventually been shown up in school again, but were studiously avoiding her, as in Taylor. In fact, many of them looked perpetually depressed and terrified, like there was a huge weight from on high about to come down on them and they had no way of stopping it.

She tried not to take any pleasure in that, but she was only human, even if she _was_ supposed to be a hero.

Emma hadn't come back to school. Madison, the few times she'd noticed her, had looked terrified and alone and decidedly tormented. At one point, she appeared to have had some sort of sweet, syrupy juice spilled on her.

Was this what justice felt like?

Taylor wished these idyllic days could go on forever.

On Thursday night, the week after the cult-girl at the mall, as Taylor slept, the Endbringer sirens began to blare.

….

 **\- To be continued…**

….

A/N: For a special Mythic Taylor-theme Single's Awareness Day short, visit, _**Love Stories**_ at /s/6741970/8/Love-Stories **.**

….

 _ **OMAKE! THE MOVIE!**_

….

 _The Taylorangers have settled into their ordinary lives, simply becoming regular superheroes instead of the Protectors of Mankind. Suddenly, a mysterious rift in reality opens to an unknown Earth! Led by a Villain calling herself Khepri, the forces of Earth Gehenna wage war on the known Earths, searching for an Artifact that is said to bestow great power: The Head of Taylor!_

 _With their (other) mother's legacy once more threatened, the Taylorangers once more don their costumes from two months ago to fight this great evil!_

0-0-0

"Ha ha ha!" the villain who called herself Khepri laughed. "At last! The Head of Taylor! Finally, it's power shall be mine!" She held aloft the head, the face obscured by the dried, dead hair.

"No!" Taylor Red growled as he and the other Taylorangers struggled against their greatest weakness: wacky finger cuffs that prevented proper somantic components! "You won't get away with this!"

"Well, you weren't going to forgive me anyway," Khepri sneered.

"I might have! If you'd apologized!"

"No, you say it every time," TaylorBlack said the voices of the legions of dead little sisters. "It's kind of your catchphrase. People got the hint long ago big sister."

"Just who the fuck are you, anyway?" TaylorPink demanded. "Honestly, who wastes a perfectly good Master power just to control an army of capes for some petty power grab? You already HAD an army of capes!"

"Because this is PERSONAL... little sister!" Khepri roared.

"Oh no..." TaylorGreen sighed, rolling her eyes. "Not this again."

"Why do so many people have mom's DNA?" TaylorSilver agreed. "Was mom a slut? Did she get around? Because I'm cool with that, I gives me one more goal to aspire to."

Everyone pretty much sighed as Khepri took off her mask and revealed... yup, yet another TaylorClone.

"Really?" TaylorBlue demanded, not impressed. " _ **This**_ was the best plan you could come up with? Go all mind-controlled army on us? For crying out loud, why didn't you just kidnap one of us and take our place?"

"It's not like you had a limited range of choices," TaylorGreen agreed. "I mean, we don't even bother to dress differently!"

"Shut up!" Khepri snarled. "You think you're all so smart just because Int isn't your dump stat!"

"What's she talking about?" TaylorRed asked.

"Beats me, I stopped listening when it turned out we had yet another sister," TaylorPink shrugged.

"There! Right there!" Khepri snarled. "Talking over me. Looking down on me, just because my power was originally _bug control_. Well, I showed EVERYONE. Bug girl, huh? Well, EVERYONE is my bugs now!"

"Wait," the TaylorBlack creepy voice consensus said. "You don't have Taylor's powers?"

"Go ahead! Make fun of me for it!" Khepri snarled. "I'll have my bugs melt your eyeballs! Who'll be laughing then!"

"Oh my gosh!" TaylorBlack said, all her voices shocked. "I thought the information about you was just junk data. You're the first, aren't you? The very first. Taylor 00000, the control subject. The one born without powers!"

"Not anymore!" Khepri snarled. "I was made with the memories of the original Taylor! I managed to recreate her path to power!"

TaylorBlack gasped as her sisters felt increasingly excluded from the conversation. TaylorPink had started trying to bite through her finger cuffs. "You mean... "

"Yes! Taunting! Bullying! Systemic societal exclusion! Flutes! And finally, a locker filled with used tampons!" Khepri roared, then screamed in anger. "BUT ALL IT DID WAS GIVE ME BUG CONTROL! I swore I would have my revenge on the universe for this injustice and have the power that was meant to be mine! And now I shall! And you can't stop me!"

"No," a voice suddenly called out. "But _we_ can!"

Startled, everyone looked up, staring at a line of vaguely familiar costumes.

"Vampire of Evocation! TaylorRed!"

"Yuki-Onna of the Black Blade! TaylorBlue!"

"Banshee Eldritch Scrapper! TaylorYellow!"

"Ghost Cleric! TaylorPink!"

"Dullahan Druid! TaylorGreen!"

"Lich Duskblade Mystic Theurge Bard! Taaay-loooor SILVER!"

"Flesh Golem Synthesist Summoner! TaylorBlack!"

"We are...

 _ **Necro Sentai! Taylorangers!"**_

0-0-0

 _SCM Presents..._

 _ **Taylorangers v Taylorangers the Movie! The Head of Taylor!**_

0-0-0

 _The combined Taylorangers fought through an army of capes and unremarkable normies, trying to stop Khepri, aka TaylorZero from using the Head of Solomon– though the other Taylorangers insisted it was actually the Head of the Whispering Tyrant– from gaining the full powers of a Tayloranger!_

0-0-0

"Wait, what exactly _is_ it?" one TaylorRed asked.

"It's… well, it's pretty disgusting," the TaylorGreen without a head said. "But basically it's mom's head."

"Yes, that's kind of obvious," the solid TaylorPink said testily, "but what's so special about it?"

"Well, after Deathless Morning, parts of mom's body were found and preserved as relics. Over time, they've displayed parahuman abilities independent to them," the TaylorSilver slathered with a lot of baby cologne said. "Her right arm, her left eye, her left ear… others. They're all known as the Whispering Fragments. If you surgically implant them into your body, you gain their parahuman power. The Eye of the Tyrant lets you see in perfect darkness, through invisibility effects, Master and Stranger effects… anything that might obscure your view of objective reality, with the eye you can see through it. The Arm of the Tyrant can drain energy from other parahumans and destroy constructs and shields with a touch. That's documented. Others, like the Heart of the Tyrant, are more apocryphal. They say if you implant the Heart into yourself, you can never die."

"Wait, people are passing mom's bodyparts around?" one of the TaylorBlues said. "That's gross!"

"Tay-lor Black!" the little Taylor who had stitches all over herself said. Her right arm was longer than her left, looking like someone had put an adult's arm onto a child. "Flesh SYN-thesist!"

"Wait, you put mom's arm on your sister?-!" TaylorBlack shrieked in the voice of a disgusted legion.

"SYN-thesist!" the little Taylor said. Apparently her name was the extent of her vocabulary.

"Safest place to put it," the incorporeal TaylorPink said, looking proud. "Good work if I do say so myself."

"According to legend, the Head of the Whispering Tyrant contains all of mother's powers," the TaylorBlue who kept expelling waves of cold air said. "If Khepri gets it, we will be dealing with the very power that saved the world being wielded by a psychotic teenaged girl with issues so long they're more like coffee table book compilations. It will be the Morning all over again."

"Then we need to stop her, obviously," the other TaylorSilver said, hefting her guitar-sword. "What are we waiting for!"

0-0-0

 _Calling upon the Presents left to them by Santa Claus, the Taylorangers once more became Power Taylorangers, while their counterparts used the strange batteries called Grief Seeds left behind by a passing through bomb-enthusiast to become the Puella Magi Taylorangers. Dubbing themselves themselves Team Life and Team Death for the sake of clarity, they called forth their MegaLisa robots DaiTaylorOh and DieTaylorMaou to break through Khepri's defenses!_

0-0-0

"NOO!" cried Contessa Junior, Contessa Junior Junior, and the new Contessa Junior Junior Junior as they were defeated. "How can this be?"

"What, did you think we wouldn't be there for our kids?" Lisa said as she suddenly appeared. A gold ring shined on her finger. "What kind of deadbeat mom do you think we are?"

"That's right," another Lisa said as she also appeared. A gold ring shined on her finger. "We don't want our kids growing up like Shadow Stalker, thank you very much."

"Why are you wearing so much baby cologne?"

"We all miss her in our own ways."

Together, the Taylorangers and Taylorangers broke into Khepri's lab!

"Too late!" Khepri said from behind a force field. She was strapped to chair, with the head positioned over her. "The power of Taylor will be mine!" The machine began to activate.

One of the TaylorBlacks stared at the head, the face now visible. The head that had two eyes. "NO! STOP!" she cried in a voice of one little girl alone.

Too late. The machine cut off Khepri's head and slammed the Head of the Whispering Tyrant down onto the stump.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then spurting arterial blood pushed the head off the stump and onto the floor, where it rolled around disgustingly.

"It… didn't work?" Power TaylorPink said, sounding confused.

"It's… not… real… head…" Puella Magi TaylorBlack said haltingly, as if testing each word beforehand.

"Noire!" Puella Magi TaylorSilver cried. "You got over your speech impediment!"

0-0-0

"So it wasn't the real head?" Kuro asked in the voice of 10031 curious little girls.

Noire shook her head, pointing at her own eye. "Flesh Golem," she said, using the words the was most familiar with.

"Oh, the head had BOTH eyes," the headless Vert said. "Huh. I guess Int really WAS her dump stat. That was so obvious."

"What IS a dump stat, anyway?" Berry asked.

"And thus were we all made fools of," Akane said, drinking from her pouch of blood like a juice box.

"That's disgusting," Scarlet said, staring.

"Bite me."

"Ariana, got a spare pick? I'm out of change."

"Here Argento."

"So, where's your mom?" Pinkanema asked as she turned the ice-cream maker.

"With your mom," Rose said, her hand stuck inside the ice-cream maker to cool it to deathly coldness.

"That… doesn't sound good," Azul said.

"It sounds like it's going to be traumatizing," Aoi agreed. "I think we might become siblings. Mom always did love herself as much as mom."

"Hey, anyone know where the yellows went?"

"Oh, does yours not have a name either?"

0-0-0

"One thing still bothers me," Goldy– see, TaylorYellow totally has a name!– said.

"Oh?" Leanan said.

"Why did Khepri think the head would be in this world? Much less think to try to conquer it?"

"I guess we'll never know," Lea said.

0-0-0

In Khepri's ruined lab, a figure walked through the rubble. Among the rubble was a head. The figure picked it up, tsk-ing to herself.

"Two eyes," the figure said. "Stupid, amateur mistake."

Shrugging, she began to walk back the way she came, using a power to rip out the left eye of the skull and leaving it behind. She climbed the steps of what appeared to be a plain white gazebo, sitting down on a plain white chair and setting the head down on the flat surface of what appeared to be a plain white table. "Well, let's go Gazebo. Time to find someone more gullible…"

The figure laughed. It was a cackling laugh, as of a helpful stranger.

0-0-0

 **The End?**

Please review, C&C welcome.

Until next time, this is Shadow, signing off.


	9. The Inevitable Endbringer Fight Part 1!

A/N: Yes, Taylor is STILL not optimized. Strong, but not _**optimized.**_

Yes, I know that they don't sound the sirens everywhere in the world when an Endbringer comes up. I know that's fanon. But it occurs to me there's a very good reason why they _would_ , so I'm rolling with it. Yup. That's the reason, not just I'm too lazy to rewrite the last chapter.

I apologize to any Australians in the audience for the depiction of Australia. In my defense, other (alleged) Australians help me make this. Seriously, I was just going to have everyone be called Bruce, until I was told more…

….

Toaru Majutsu no Taylor-chan: A Certain Mythic Archmage

by Shadow Crystal Mage

Chapter 8: The Inevitable Endbringer Fight Chapters! Part 1 - Solomon Finally Sets Something On Fire (On Purpose! Heroically!)!

Disclaimer: Worm created by Wildbow. Pathfinder by Paizo. All hail Gygax!

….

Taylor Hebert's earliest memories of waking up to Endbringer sirens was not, as some would think, childhood fear and confusion. It was, quite sensibly, waking up to find her parents hugging her and being told she wouldn't have to go to school tomorrow. Sometimes, when the sirens had sounded, they'd get in the car, meet up with Emma and the Barnes' and go to this weird underground place. There they'd try to play, but quietly, because there wasn't much room and everyone was quiet. She eventually started bringing a book to read. Sometimes she'd read to Emma.

Nowadays, with knowledge of what the sirens meant, and the toll she knew was coming, they had been ground down to mean she didn't have to go to school that day, and if whichever Endbringer it was came close enough to Brockton to warrant people going to a shelter, her dad would wake her up.

Taylor Hebert turned over and went back to sleep, only vaguely aware of how her power was fully charged across all tiers and–

Her eyes snapped open.

Her power.

The Endbringer sirens continued to blare.

Taylor closed her eyes and allowed herself to remember those far-off, childhood memories of waking up with her parents holding her, of the simple happiness of playing with a friend. Growing up sucked.

Then she opened her eyes, got out of bed and stripped down to put on her costume. She'd eventually worked out how to put it on, saving her having to use a power on it. Once more she swore she'd make a Tinktertech thing that would put her whole costume and all her equipment on her with a push of a button. Maybe she'd mount it on her belt of something.

Boots that let her float up and down and increased her footspeed: check.

Armor-enhanced silk bodysuit able to take a blast from a shotgun: check.

Belt that boosted her strength, dexterity and staying power: check.

Tinkertech storage-slash-strengthening devices on said belt: check.

Scabbard containing weapons, of which she suddenly wished she had more of: check, but not as much as she suddenly realized she wanted.

Forcefield-projecting, strength-enhancing bracers: check

Self-fabricated but otherwise unremarkable leather gloves: check and she really needed to get better ones…

Golden cloak that lets her stick to walls: check.

Magnetic cloak pin that's currently ok even though it pops off when she sits down: check.

After a moment, she took the old cloak pin she used before she got magnets in case she needed to replace it due to circumstances.

Headband that gave her skills and increased her power-usage efficiency, allowing her to use her powers more times: check.

Helmet that let her shapeshift: check.

Taylor stared appreciatively at her reflection as the siren blared, before finally admitting she was stalling.

She headed downstairs. Her dad was already up, the TV on to check the news. Real news, not the network with the fat idiot dad cartoon. It had barely been five minutes, but they were already reporting that it was the Simurgh, who'd begun to descend from orbit. No sure destination yet, but there was a tentative prediction it was somewhere in the southern hemisphere.

Used to be, at that point her dad would tell her to go back to sleep. They'd wait in bed for the siren to stop blaring– it went on for a good twenty minutes no matter where the Endbringer was– then go back to sleep. The next day, there was no school, no work.

But things were different now.

Her dad looked up as she came down the stairs, mouth opening, and froze, his jaw hanging open. "No…" he breathed, not seeming to realize what he was saying.

"I have to go, dad," Taylor said.

"Taylor, no! You can't!" her dad said, sounding like someone was twisting his heart as she took the last steps down the stairs. He reached towards her and she allowed him to grip her by the shoulders. "You're not going!"

"Dad," she said gently. "I'm a hero. I got the little card and everything." She raised her arms, pulled him into a hug.

"You're my little girl," he said, muffled slightly from the side of her helmet. "This is an Endbringer, Taylor!"

"Every hero there is going to be someone's little girl, someone's little boy," Taylor said, despite the tears in her eyes, despite the screaming panic inside her that told her that maybe, just this once, she be a good girl and listen to her dad and stay at home. "They go anyway because they… because we know that if we don't, one day there won't be any little girls and boys anymore. Because you're my dad and I want you to be proud of me. Because I want you to live in a world where good people fight the monsters no matter how scary they are."

For a minute, they both stood like that as the siren outside abruptly cut off. The night became still again. She wondered why they did that every time. All it did was wake every one, let them know that somewhere, an Endbringer was going to kill a lot of people. What was the point?

Eventually, she said, "Dad? Please let me go now?"

For a moment, his grip tightened. It didn't hurt, not through her force fields, but she could feel it. There was a sob.

" _Dad…_ ?" she said, trying not to sound like she was losing patience when she was, in fact, losing patience. "Look, I'm going to be fine. I turn into a dragon, remember? Even Leviathan couldn't mess with a dragon, and I turn into a way bigger dragon than that."

There was a choked sound like a laugh heard through a filter of crying. A beat. Then, gently, sadly, desperately, he let go.

She awkwardly pried up her helmet and gave him a brief, encouraging kiss on the cheek. Then she pulled away and ran down to the basement.

Down the steps, through the selectively permeable wall and darkness, into the portal hiding in the underground dirt beyond on the other side of the wall, into a large area where six of her projections slept in simple wooden beds. Through another portal, the brief jar as she crossed the order where time was moving eight times faster. Six of her projections where making paradrugs, while the remaining six were divided between using their powers to make bottles and materials. They all looked up as she entered, but none broke stride, continuing their work.

"You," she said, pointing at one of the projections that just finished turning a large piece of what had been glass full plate armor sized for something over 80 feet tall into a lot of bottles. "Stop what you're doing, I need the bags filled with every bottle of paradrug we have! Then I need one of you to teleport me to the PRT!"

….

Taylor had the constructs take turns boosting her while wearing the orange power enhancers before they teleported to the PRT. 20 hours of flight capability, performance enhancement on her weapons, slightly more capability to take a beating and an increase to her force field and three hours, 20 minutes of extra sharpness to her weapons, resistance to certain energies, reinforcement to her armors on top of the original hardening power she had applied to it when she first made it and the ability to deflect projectiles surrounded her as she and the projection teleporting her arrived at a roof two buildings away from the PRT building. The projection teleported back as Taylor adjusted the two bags over her shoulder. Both were identical backpacks, the kind with a central main portion and two side pouches. Simple flaps covered the drawstring openings. They'd both been dyed white with prominent red crosses, and a subtle border of red triangles at the edges.

She launched herself into the air, heading straight for the front doors of the PRT building. The lights were on and no one seemed to have gone home if the amount of people in front was any indicator. There was a crowd of people in lobby, so Taylor figured she had the right place. They were too far to make out, but there was the gleam of armor, at least one man without a shirt, and no one had much fleshtones visible at head height.

PRT troopers in front tensed when she floated down out of the night, but they didn't raise weapons as she raised her hard to show she wasn't armed and, more importantly, wasn't potentially pointing any Blaster powers at anything but sky. "Here to help. W-with the Endbringer," she said, then cursed herself for the stutter in her voice. Quickly, she took a breath, bringing Legend to mind. She had to remember that. She was a hero, like Legend. She was here to fight Endbringers and make it look easy.

There was no looking at each other, just a quick scan from head to toe, a nod, and they stepped out of the way. It wasn't that they were blocking the way before, but they made it clear she could pass. To the side, one of the troopers gave her a thumbs up. "Good luck kid," he said.

"Thanks," Solomon, heroic hero of heroism Solomon, said, nodding politely at the troopers, her head held high as she strode to the lobby.

Putting one hand on the glass, she pushed the lobby doors open.

At the same the large crowd in the middle of the lobby disappeared.

Taylor stared, half inside, at the sudden empty space.

…

Damn it, had she been _late?!_

Taylor twitched, closed her eyes, took a deep, calming breath, then entered all the way and made a beeline for the front desk. She focused on it to the exclusion of all else, because if she had to notice anyone who might have seen her arrive _late_ for an Endbringer fight, she was pretty sure she'd… well, not die, that would be overreacting but would definitely be even more embarrassed.

She pasted a face smile on her face, remembered her helmet covered her whole head, and tried to put sincere politeness in her voice. "Excuse me," she said to the person manning the desk. "I'm here to help with the Endbringer fight?"

"Uh, they just left," the woman at the desk said. Her name tag helpfully read 'Tam'.

"I saw," Taylor said, and she was glad her voice managed to stay even and not take her annoyance out on the woman. "I need to know where they went so I can go myself."

The woman blinked. It had clearly been a long night. Most PRT people she met were usually more on the ball than this. "W-what?"

"The Endbringer," Taylor asked patiently. "What city is it attacking? Please, I need to know so I can help."

"Excuse me, can I help you?"

Taylor didn't sigh, instead turning to answer the most rote, asinine question that was a pretext to interrupt the modern world had invented. She found herself looking at one of her childhood heroes and local celebrity. Miss Militia stood there, looking relaxed but alert, but calm in a way that was obviously well-practiced.

"Yes, please," Taylor said. "I'm here to help with the Endbringer fight," wow, that seemed to get easier to say with repetition. The horror of the unknowable was starting to fade every time she forced the words through her mouth, replaced with the terror of the concrete reality, "and I need to know where it is so I can teleport there."

Taylor half-expected her to say something inane like "You're a teleporter?" or "I thought you were a photokinetic?". Instead, Miss Militia nodded decisively and said, "Canberra, Australia. The arrival point is the local PRT-affiliate headquarters, at the parking lot. Do you need a map?"

At that moment, Taylor decided Alexandria has serious competition as her favorite cape. She never realized how being competent made someone look so badass. "Yes, please. And thank you very much."

….

Taylor made sure to study the map very well before she expended a charge to teleport herself there. Charges regenerated hourly, after all. Energy for powers needed more time.

For the second time that year, Taylor Hebert illegally left the country and entered a different one without passing through customs or immigration. Heroically, of course. Totally heroically.

And that was how she found herself face to face with Nazis. Around them, Endbringer Sirens continued to blare.

The sun was up, but didn't look like it would be for long. Judging from the angle, it looked about mid-afternoon, but that wasn't important, because most of the Empire were staring at her for suddenly appearing before them.

Taylor hoped no one noticed how her knees locked in panic. She didn't even have time to–

Time seemed to freeze. Taylor recognized the sensation, the strange feeling of seemingly looking down at the situation from some outside metaphysical point as everything seemed to stop and become a tableau she could observe and consider. It would break the minute she actually made a move or used a power, but for now she had time to think. While her body was still physically keyed up, her mind calmed down, analyzing. No weapons out, guns or blades. No hands up. Their faces, what could be seen, didn't look angry. No one seemed about to blast her.

In that moment, she had a momentary flash of insight, totally unrelated to her powers. The rules of engagement had placed an emphasis on the truce with villains during Endbringer attacks and other Class-S threats. But how did they know to come? After all, it wasn't like they gave the PRT their number. If, however, one sounded the sirens…

After all, that was how Taylor knew to be here.

Taylor took a deep breath and time unfroze. "Excuse me," she said in her most diplomatic voice, "But is this Australia?" **[1d20+24! 43!]**

There was an awkward pause as everyone else took in what she'd been able to realize. Kaiser seemed the most unperturbed, but given how he was decked out in full plate armor, there wasn't much to emote and little way of telling if his knees had locked in surprise too. "Indeed it is," he said, sounding smooth, cultured, white and male. If he were old and dead he'd probably be made a literary canon writer. Or a Nazi officer, whichever. "Stand down everyone. No need to cause a scene."

"Thank you," Taylor said, managing to fall into the easy rhythms of social niceties.

She gave them a polite nod and deliberately turned her back, secure in the knowledge that her layered force fields, altogether, could protect her from being trampled by an elephant. So, now what?

Taylor had expected… she wasn't sure. A speech? Maybe a few minutes to socialize and see who else had shown up? An update on what they were supposed to do? Heck, a map and a power point presentation as to some kind of plan?

Nope, none of that. Apparently, everyone was to jump straight into the fray. Someone gave her an armband that she put on her upper arm since there was not WAY she was taking off one of her bracers, and she could still see the screen that way. There were instructions on a sticky sheet over the screen that you had to notice to peel the thing off. Taylor committed those to memory. There was an explanation about a bomb. Taylor tried very hard to forget that as she activated the device.

PRT agents, or whatever the Australian equivalent of the PRT was, were directing people to groups, who were already out in the field. The Protectorate, once she spotted them, and even the Empire moved like this was old hat to them, barely needing to know who they were supposed to report to and where to go before they were moving. Only two moved with any sort of hesitation. Triumph walked just a little too slow, seemed to follow more than actually knew what he was doing. The hooded Nazi girl, Rune if Taylor remembered her research right, looked actively confused, looking around like some girl getting lost on a field trip, and would have been left behind at least once if the taller woman, Othala, hadn't kept glancing back after her.

Taylor felt the same way, only she didn't know anyone and there was no one to take her hand. The day had definitely already gone downhill if she was feeling envious of a Nazi. Damn it, why did she think this was–

Taylor caught the thought in time and strangled it, keeping a firm grip on her power. Charges wasted on rhetorical questions were the LAST thing she needed right now.

"Hey," a familiar voice said.

Taylor turned to find Velocity . "Oh, thank God," she said, losing her composure for a moment.

"Stick with me," he said. "This is your first time, right? Don't worry, no one expects you to kill one of the Endbringers on your first fight. You come out of this alive and sane, you're already ahead of the game."

"Speaking of games," Taylor said, "where's first aid? I brought medical supplies. Tinkertech medical supplies."

Velocity glanced at her. "I thought you said you were an Eidolon-package?"

"Just because Eidolon doesn't seem to use his Tinktertech much is no reason for me not to," Taylor said.

Velocity seemed to pause at that, though his feet kept moving. "You think Eidolon makes Tinkertech?" he said, sounding like he'd never thought of it before.

"Wouldn't he?" Taylor said. "I mean, being a Tinker Trump is about the only way you can get more bullshit than a regular Trump or Tinker."

"You _do_ have a point…" Velocity said. "All right, come on."

Taylor was already drawing handful of bottles from one of her backpacks. She checked the labels, smirked at the bag working the way it's supposed to, then handed them to Velocity. "Here," she said.

He took them without breaking stride. "What's this?" he asked.

"Tinkertech drugs," Taylor said.

"Thanks, but I'll be fine. I was taking a nap when the call came in," Velocity said, trying to hand them back.

Taylor shook her head. "Bullshit Trump Tinkertech drugs. Each of those bottles will give you a forcefield that ameliorates kinetic or directed energy for an hour. Not very strong, but it would turn a shotgun blast at pointblank range into something you'd live through, even if it hurts like hell."

Velocity nearly tripped. "That IS bullshit," he said. "Do you have more?"

Taylor patted her bag. "I bought all I had. I also have bullshit healing drugs. Not quite Panacea in a bottle, but if one doesn't get you up to fighting fit, take two."

"How idiot-proof is it?" Velocity asked, still staring at the bottles in his hand, all labeled 'Trump-MA11'.

"Drink straight or pour on injury for focused effect," Taylor said.

"Let's get you to the healers," Velocity said grimly. "That's complicated enough for some idiot to mess up. And give me the bag with the forcefield stuff."

"Yeah, about that…"

….

" _This is Velocity to all non-Brutes in active combat positions, a new arrival just came in with a batch of I-shit-you-not Tinkertech Trump drugs. They come in bottle form and grant idiot-proof personal-forcefield generation for an hour. Movers will be delivering them to your positions. To all points, included with the batch are Tinkertech healing drugs described as 'almost Panacea in a bottle'. We have enough to give everyone three for emergency use. The rest will be sent to medical and high-tier movers for field use."_

….

After giving a crash course on the highly convenient properties of her Tinkertech backpack, which Velocity had dutifully declared 'Convenient and totally bullshit', Taylor had been pointed towards one of the medical stationswhere the injured were to be brought in by Movers, several large tents set up in a parking lot. There were more civilians– doctors and nurses– there than capes. Othala was already there, helping set up beds. Victor was readying medical supplies, and had incongruously put on scrubs.

She recognized others from Brockton Bay. The man in camo-pattern overalls with a surplus army helmet modified to look like a hardhat washing his hands was The Stud. Mix Meyestro, whose costume made him look like a bartender from a western, complete with cowboy hat, ludicrously huge mustache and a strip of cloth with eye-holes for a mask (MUCH better looking than one the fallen and unlamented Skidmark had worn) was nervously drinking from a bottle of water. There were others she didn't recognize. A girl in a dark silk butterfly mask wearing an extremely filmy dark-purple dress was hastily pinning back her ribbons, bows and skirts. A thin, long-haired man in a white coat/robe combo and blank metal mask fingered the short sword at his side. A band even girlier-looking than her in pretty-boy-romance-novel-cover-pirate mode, wearing a open-chested ruffled shirt, head-covering bandanna mask, tight pants and a weapon belt with a gun and rapier was flirting with some nurses.

The backpack was now slung over one shoulder, its straps unlatched and connected together to form something like a messenger bag. Easier to reach in that way, exactly for that reason. She looked around and took off her cloak, stuffing it in her belt pouch. She was thankful one of the implanted skillsets she'd settled on for her headpiece was medical.

She snagged one of the more recognizably doctorly people there. "Excuse me," she said, then increasing her tempo at the woman's clearly impatient look. "I brought Tinkertech medical supplies. Velocity told me I needed to teach people how to use them while there's still time."

"Has it been approved?" the woman asked impatiently.

The woman was probably surprised when Taylor pulled out a copy of the power-testing paperwork from a few days ago. "Documented by PRT ENE," Taylor said, showing the sheet.

The doctor gave it a cursory examination with the look of a woman remembering who to pass the buck to, then stared at Taylor intently in a way that at Winslow would have involved the words 'I've got my eye on you [insert applicable non-politically correct term]' or 'You're dead!'. "Fine. Everyone, gather round!" the Doctor called. "Five minute orientation for last minute supplies." She gave Taylor a look and she realized that was all she was getting form the woman.

As people's eyes turned towards her, Taylor took a deep breath and skipped Legend, going for a drill sergeant in a movie she saw once. She needed to do this fast. She reached into her bag and held up a bottle. It was basically a one-ounce-and-a-bit tube with an aluminum screw cap, replicating medicine bottles she'd seen before, including the seal perforations to show it hadn't been opened yet. Her projections did good work. Unlike most medicine bottles, it was clear and filled with a vivid and recognizable green liquid with suspended silver particulates. "This is CLW11. It's a Tinkertech drug that heals soft tissue damage and accelerates regeneration. One bottle is one dose. You need the whole dose to be effective," she said, trying to sound like she was explaining what a gun was and how there were many like it. "It can be taken orally or applied directly to wounds for concentrated effect. Be advised it dries sticky. If there are fragments or embedded materials at consumption, the wound is going to heal around it. For life-threatening wounds, multiple doses will not result in overdose, although a single dose will be enough to prevent bleeding and likely stabilize a patient."

"Does it work?" someone asked.

For a moment, Taylor wondered if she should telekinetically shove the paperwork in his face. Then she considered it and stripped off her left glove.

There was a sudden reasonable rise in tension as Taylor drew her new dagger from her scabbard, its glowing blade bright blue and obvious in the light. "Lethal," Taylor murmured as she dropped her forcefield just before she plunged it towards her ungloved hand.

There was a surprising lack of pain as everyone recoiled. It throbbed, it hurt, but it felt disconnected, as if she was having the sensation described to her by someone else. Really, after going thought eh protective field her bracers generated and the forcefield trump power her projections had placed on her, there was practically no force behind it. The dagger had been sharp and she'd slit it neatly between her bones and blood was already welling up around it, though not much. While having a knife go straight through her palm and out the other side was visually impressive, it was barely a bother to her. She rose a few feet of the ground and showed her hand to every so they could see the extent of the observable damage, then pulled out the knife, allowing the blood to flow. Wow, that was a lot. Thank goodness her bodysuit was easy to clean. After showing everyone that, yes, the hole was real, she downed the dose in the bottle, keeping her left hand up and giving people a clear view of the hole sealing shut. The non-pain ended.

Taylor drifted down and idly began to clean the blood with one of her lowest-tier powers, the stain on her arm and drops on the floor slowly being cleaned. After a thought, she cleaned her dagger too. "So, yeah, like that. Any questions?"

"How many did you bring?" someone asked.

"I have fifteen hundred doses on me right now," Taylor said, holding up the white bag. "Velocity is distributing more to Search and Rescue."

Everyone stared at the small bag. It wasn't even bulging.

"Fuckin' Tinkers'," someone said. More than a few people nodded.

Looking at her pack, Taylor could hardly blame them.

….

For several tense minutes after Taylor had stacked a decent pile of three hundred paradrugs on the table as well as handed an emergency forcefield dose to everyone (even, regrettably, the Nazis and the German pretty-boy villain with the short sword. Who to his credit looked at the self-proclaimed Nazis with more disgust than a mere American could manage), they waited, tense. Canberra was not a 'towering buildings everywhere' city, with a lot of area being taken up by suburban houses and nature reserves, and so from where they were on the southern end of the city they could make out the flashing lights of powers and small cloud of debris that was the Simurgh.

" _Conflux down, NC-7. Creepy Tayla down, MD-2. Fortuity down, MC-9. Nazo no Yuusha X deceased, FG-1. Firefight deceased, NC-4. Limelight down, Bruce down, NC-4."_

The updates from the armbands were depressing as hell to listen to. Taylor resisted the urge to pace, play around with bottles or hurl. Instead, she stood to one side and kept an eye out for incoming wounded, and considered how to improve her paradrug. The honey and Mountain Dew had to go if it was going to function as a topical. Though it would be disgusting to choke down with just the beer. Perhaps two versions? But that would be silly, since it was essentially the same stuff. Ugh, what could she mix together that was safe to drink AND pour on your skin at the same time without becoming sticky? Nothing, that's what!

Clearly she'd have to use more power bullshit on this when she got back.

Eventually, wounded started coming in ferried by Movers. Bereft of buildings, the Simurgh had started throwing around rocks picked up from the barren lands she'd passed over, as well as trees and assorted violent wildlife. Since this was Australia, 'Still The Continent Where Everything Is Trying To Kill You But Now Escaped Biotinker Creations Die Horribly To The Sheep' and where the primary cause of parahuman death was STILL the extremely dangerous wildlife, the city now had maybe double the usual number of deadly animals roaming its streets. Animal control had been deployed, the only government branch authorized to carry Tinkertech heavy weaponry. Even the local PRT-affiliate was only allowed containment foam. The only ones who used more extreme measures were exterminators, who were regarded as total badasses, especially after a now-very-dead villain had tried to 'save' some endangered species and only managed to make them ten times more hellish and deadly. Apparently they'd once had a girl who could control bugs. The panic that had ensued only stopped when Leviathan had attacked Sydney and the country had confirmed she'd been one of the dead (no one asked too hard why her supposedly 'drowned' corpse had been riddle by bullets and energy burns). Taylor felt that was probably an extreme overreaction. What damage could one girl who could control bugs do?

Many of the injured had been attacked by sheep. Given the Brute that had needed Othala's regeneration to grow back his arms ("The sheep! The damned SHEEP!"), the use of the Tinkertech weaponry was apparently justified, even without whatever evil Tinkertech the Simurgh had used on them.

"No, that's perfectly ordinary sheep behavior," one of the nurses said as the Brute was led off to be given a stiff drink before going back to the field. "Damned sheep are classified as Brute 2."

Fuck.

 _"Curveball down, PD-3. Brisbane Shazza down, ER-2. Mitosis down, LB-2. Regalia deceased, NC-7. Brucington Mad Bruce down, FN-6._ _Nazo no Yuusha X deceased, FG-2. Dawnslight down, SK-6. Sydney Beer Bruce deceased, ME-4._ _"_

The fighting seemed to be all over the city as ground-bound heroes were deployed to keep violent animals away from civilians. The Simurgh had apparently roused all the local bees into homicidal violence, if the reports from the armbands were any indicator.

"No, that's perfectly ordinary bee behavior," one of the recovering heroes covered in bee stings, Exmouth Bruce, said before he downed on a double dose of paradrug. "Hmm, tastes like Mountain Dew!"

After that, Taylor started handing out more forcefield bottles to outgoing capes. That should be enough to protect them from bees, right?

Still, it seemed like they were doing okay.

So of course, everything went to hell unexpectedly. No one was surprised, not even the strange extradimensional entities voyeuristically learning about these events from strange notices on glass machines. Especially not them.

….

" _Steel Reckoner Down, SH-1. Townsville Bubbles down, PG-1. Townswville Blossom down, PG-2. Townsville Buttercup down, PG3. Townsville Bunny deceased, PG-4. Nazo no Yuusha X deceased, GD-9._ "

"No, you can't have more just because it tastes like beer and Mountain Dew," Taylor said for the she'd-lost-track-of-how-many times as she helped one of the local heroes– Wollongong Beer Bruce, who apparently specialized in beer-related Tinkertech, not to be confused with Adelaide Beer Bruce, Warrnambool Beer Bruce, Maitland Beer Bruce and Wollongong Beer Johnny– off on his way. "Don't drink those doses unless you get injured _I-MEAN-IT_ and I don't think I'm really the person you need to talk to for Mountain Dew-flavored beer." Also not the first time she'd said that. People around here seemed to have a weird and borderline unhealthy fixation on beer. They had a Beer Truce and bars were neutral ground. Bar chains fought like gangs, having turf fights and protection rackets.

The pretty-boy German villain whose name Taylor still hadn't picked up apparently thought this was all right and proper and Taylor could literally feel his disdain of Victor and Othala triple at their lack for respect for beer when the professed bemusement on hearing the local custom. It wasn't every day that someone gave actual Nazis a lesson in Nazi history and the importance of beer halls in it (in tones that grudgingly admitted that this was a mildly saving grace, on par with a cannibal remembering to wash their hands before eating their victims alive), and implying this made them even less than the originals, who at least had the decency to respect beer.

The first indicator something was wrong was when Wraith– the guy who was even prettier than her pretty boy mode- suddenly paused, tilting his head. "Does anyone else here that?" he said.

People stopped, many tilting their heads to listen. Taylor had to cup one hand and once more swore to herself to redesign her helmet so she could hear better. Thankfully they didn't have much wonded since between the paradrugs, Othala's regeneration and the doctors they been getting ahead of all the dismemberments, gorings and full-body stingings. Sheep were apparently much more dangerous than Taylor had thought. The few patients they had were either concussed unconscious or just waiting their turn with Othala to get their limbs back.

Taylor strained to hear… whatever it was. "Is that… sheep?"

At least one injured person on the beds started screaming.

"Someone give that man a beer," one of the older doctors said. "Bruce, go get the shotguns. You, Bruce, help him. You sure it's sheep, lass?"

"Pretty sure. Unless there's something else in this country that sounds like sheep but is bigger, meaner and crazier?" Taylor said.

"Guy named Sheeptinker Jones made some bigger sheep a few years back," one of the wounded on the beds said helpfully. "Too many Japanese cartoons from before it sank, you know."

"Not sure I do, and I don't want to," Taylor said, twitching slightly.

"Sensible of you," one of the nurses said. She was loading a shotgun.

"Which way are the sheep coming from?" another nurse asked. He also had a shotgun.

"Er, that way, I think?" Taylor said, pointing.

Everyone turned to stare in that direction, then looked the other way.

"But the Simurgh is that way…" the girl in the purple dress, Silence, said, sounding puzzled.

"I think we can safely considering this the Simurgh Plot everyone was waiting to drop on us and just roll with it," Victor said pragmatically. He did _not_ have a shotgun, but the handgun he held certainly looked good enough.

And that was when the cow-sized, clearly mutated, vaguely sheeplike monsters plowed through a nearby building to charge at the medical station.

"Yup, that's definitely Sheeptinker Jones' work," one of the bedridden heroes said as he plucked a beer can labeled 'pineapple' from the bandoleer across his chest, pulled the tab and threw.

Taylor was only half-surprised it exploded in a huge pineapple-scented fireball as she drew her crossbow from the scabbard at her hip, disabling the nonlethal setting and adding her fire to the sudden chorus of shotguns, Blaster powers and cries of "Damn you, Sheeptinker Jones!" and "Barbie meat!" as they stepped forward to keep the injured safe and to not die horribly to mutated ovines.

….

" _This is Othala! The our medical station is under attack by FUCKING biotinker sheep! Send backup, now!"_

….

Taylor, of course, stopped time. She'd only have a few seconds, not the twenty hours she usually had, but that was al she needed.

In the unnatural deathly silence, she stared at the sheep hanging in midair about to headbutt her, and looked down. Ah, apparently it also had disturbingly hand-like claws. Taking a fastidious step back, she looked left and right. Ah, good, she'd timed it just in time. The sheep hadn't gotten to anyone yet, although they were close. She judged the distances, rolled her shoulders to make sure her armor gave her enough slack, and tapped a 6th tier power. A stone wall erupted between them and the sheep, 14 inches thick, and ten feet high, curving around to entrap the megasheep. Floating up to the top, she looked over the stone wall, making sure the wall curved to catch most of them.

She tapped a 5th tier power and a huge metal square 25 feet to a side and covered in spike appeared in midair twenty feet up. It hung in the air, waiting for time to pass so it could fall. Taylor compared the edges and felt satisfied that this would squash most of the sheep when it started moving towards the ground. She smiled and nodded at a job well done.

Time started moving again.

There were several sounds of impact as she slammed into the stone wall and rebounded back violently just in time to have a huge wall of spike metal fall down on them.

Reaching towards her belt, Taylor popped one of the storage containers and quickly fished out the end of a strand of beads. Plucking three from the low end, she took a minute to eye the sheep, then tossed the beads where there was still movement.

Three overlapping 40-foot wide spheres of fire exploded violently, immolating the sheep inside them and only mildly scorching things bend their diameter.

….

" _This is Dingo Johhny, you know, the one from downtown Cairns, dated Blighter Abba from Bathurst? Anyway, we're ok now, that gel with the bullshit Tinkertech purse full of Mountain Dew beer squashed all of Sheeptinker Jones' sheep, may he rest in peace. They seemed more ornery than usual for ole Jones' work though, may he rest in peace. Looks like ole Simmy been messing with them, or something did. Careful out there, okay mates? Beer's on me when we're done! But just one round, I'm not made of money!_ "

….

That didn't finish off _all_ the sheep, but between more fireballs and all the shotguns, they managed to get them cleared out. One of the nurses volunteered to keep watch from atop it for more sheep or whatever, and a hat was duly found for him, "Otherwise you'd catch your death of sunstroke!". That done, the remaining capes, bedridden and otherwise, called together an impromptu meeting.

"Do we have an ETA on support?" The Stud asked, demeanor professional, even vaguely military.

Silence shook her head, glaring at her armband. It did NOT go with her dress at all. "Everyone's already spread out all over the city. The other medical stations also go hit, and so did the Thinker group, so we're actually the best off out of anyone here. "

Everyone, even Taylor, glanced over at the new stone wall, from the other side of which came both the carbonized smell of charred flesh and the disturbingly pleasant smells of fire-cooked lamb. Despite surviving without anyone being injured, it was really taking a toll on morale. More than a few people had asked if anyone had barbecue sauce.

"Damn it, now I'm hungry," Wraith said. "And we can't go out for barbecue until we get rid of the Smurf."

"Stop reminding us," the German pretty-boy villain– Azoth, Taylor had finally learned– said testily. "I'm already missing breakfast."

Wordlessly, Taylor reached for a storage container, popped it open, poured a few candies into her hand and offered it out.

" _Danke,_ " Azoth said, moving his mask to the side so he could pop three into his mouth.

"Those sheep can't be from the Smurf," Victor said. "They came from the south."

One of the bedridden local capes called out, "Uh, has anyone seen Gijinka Charlie today?"

"Oh, _him,"_ another local cape said derisively as Othala began to regenerate her leg. Someone was already getting her a replacement sandal.

"Not popular?" Taylor ventured.

"Oh, nice enough bloke," the first one said. "Always stood his tab. But a bit strange in the head, ya know?"

"Kept trying to make a sheepgirl," the second one said, rolling her eyes.

"Biotinker?" Mix Meyestro asked sharply.

"Nah, just one of those blokes who came out vampy. Drink blood, turn to mist, strong, fast, regenerator, that sort of thinger," the first said. "Basic Brute/Breaker, nothin' special. Nah, he was just really into sheepgirls. I think he lived in Japan before it sank, that might have done it. Keeps tryin' to find someone to biotinker him one. Or a gel who'd dress up as one, at the least."

"Okay, too much information," Taylor said firmly. "You think the sheep are his? Why would he have any biontinkered megasheep made by a perve?"

"Well, he's flat mates with Bastard Alberto and Weird Alex, you know, the loony and the biokinetic? Fuckers never stand a round, don't know why Gijinka Charlie likes 'em. Bastard keeps making all these virus shit, and Weird Alex owns shares in a sheep farm. Maybe Bastard Alberto, Weird Alex and Ginjinka Charlie all got drunk and tried to make a harem of sheepgirls again."

"There are so many things wrong with that sentence," Silence muttered.

"Okay, we get it, please stop now," Taylor said desperately. She looked at the device on her arm and pressed for assistance. "Has Gijinka Charlie registered for today's Endbringer?"

" _No Gijinka Charlie in database."_

"Does anyone have his number or something?" Wraith said, looking at the other Australian capes. "Big spotlight with his logo on it? Anything?"

"His bar would have it, but they'd be closed. Endbringers, ya know?" the bedridden cape said.

"Someone should check it out," someone said. Taylor was surprised to realize it was her. "If we have mutant supersheep coming up behind us, we need to know how many and that if we need to move."

There was a brief exchange of looks before someone clapped a hand on her shoulder. "Thank you for volunteering, little lady," someone said cheerfully at her. "Always nice to see someone with initiative."

And that was how Taylor found herself wandering a strange city alone in the middle of an Endbringer attack.

….

Alone with her thoughts, Taylor Hebert had to admit that her first Endbringer fight was something of a let-down.

She'd been expecting… well, more. Deadly life-and-death battles, being in over her head, fighting desperately to save people against overwhelming odds…

So far, she'd been handing out drugs, telling people they couldn't chug it like beer, and been attacked by sheep. Mutated, hyperviolent sheep, but apparently that was perfectly normal here, so sheep. Really, it didn't seem worth the drama with her dad.

And now she was looking for more sheep. She had a power for that, but honestly, she figured height would do for now.

And that was why she was sitting on the back of a flying horse-shaped charged projection, looking down on the city and looking for sheep. Although it really didn't match her expectations of a city. There there too many homes, lawns and wide green areas for it to be a city in her opinion. It looked like a suburb with delusions of grandeur. Where was the urban decay, the graffiti, the constant paving and cement that blocked the soil from view? Trees did NOT belong in a city!

She'd found the sheep quickly enough. There were signs of damage from where a few had rampaged, but surrpisingly few given how many sheep she saw. At first there were only a few, but as she kept going south there came more and more of them. Judging by the numbers she could see east and west, they seemed to be coming from the same location to the south. She dutifully relayed this through her armband and made sure to send a message to the medical station warning them to watch out for more.

Most were similar to the previous Sheeptinker Jones breed, but many had clearly been altered. Thick reds veins were visible on the parts not covered by wool, and even some of the wool was turning strange colors. Some had elongated or misshapen limbs, and a few seemed to be trying to walk on two legs. Unfortunately, most of these were pairs like both left feet, the front right and the back left, or both front. Others had grotesquely huge curling horns, curling horns that split into multiple curling points like antlers, horns that appear to have fused into some kind of biological helmet, horns that waved slowly like tentacles, HORNS THAT HAD EYEBALLS ON THEIR END…

And the further south she went, the more of the altered she found.

Fortunately, it seemed everyone had managed to evacuate. She saw nothing human as she rode, just more of the sheep. They were getting more deformed as she went, bodies becoming more disproportional, elongated. Some almost didn't look like sheep anymore, though it seemed unlikely even Gijinka Charlie would have thought them acceptable. Soon she was at an area where they were _everywhere_. Where had they come from? There should no way to get this many sheep into a city without _someone_ noticing. She relayed this into the armband, and hoped the medical station hadn't been overrun yet.

In the distance, she could see a large building surrounded by the sheep. Her heart clenched as she saw sheep coming out through the door, and if it was possible to get her projection to move faster she'd have made it do so. As she got closer, the clenching intensified to something more urgent and almost physically painful.

The building was an Endbringer shelter. And the doors were open. Doors stained with what looked like blood and other unmentionable fluids.

"No," Taylor whispered. "No!"

When her horse got close enough to the entrance she leapt off, gently drifting the 20 feet to the ground thanks to her suit as she activated its impermeability. Ghost-like, she ran into the shelter, passing through the seemingly immaterial forms of heavily mutated sheep, their spindly, awkward forms not impeding her no matter how gross the looked or the creepiness of their slot-pupiled eyes. The people…! Please, she had to make it!

Vaguely, she heard screams, screams that had to come from a human throat. A desperate hope filled her as she readied one of her Blaster powers, hoping there would at least be people to save…

She reached the main chamber of the shelter.

….

" _This is Solomon to everyone. Stay away from the Sheeptinker Jones sheep! Repeat, stay away from the Sheeptinker Jones sheep! I've found Endbringer shelter 28-14 breached and the mutant sheep everywhere, but no sign of any people. But the place stinks of blood and the sheep have blood all over them and… FUCK!"_

 _Bzzt_

" _Marceau deceased, DD-7. Synesthesia deceased, SV-7. Banshee Wail deceased, BH-1. Nazo no Yuusha X deceased, JP-2. Shy Mari deceased, WM-1. Denial down, NL-1. Henshin down, SS-4. Geiz down, KR-2."_

 _Bzzt_

" _To wave 3 within the Simurgh's affected area, you have 5 minutes to evacuate before you are out of time. Wave 4 is now rotating in. Repeat, to wave 3 within the Simurgh's affected area, you have 5 minutes to evacuate before you are out of time. Wave 4 is now rotating in."_

 _Bzzt_

" _Silicavore down, GM-3. Velocity down, LM-2. Chaldean down, FG-1. Nameless down, SH-1"_

 _Bzzt_

" _This is Ozma in medical station 3, we're running out of those Panacea bottles! Send more soon!"_

 _Bzzt_

" _Light Ferry down, OH-7. Blackstone down, WC-1. Wavemaker deceased, YH-2. Songbird deceased, NG-1."_

 _Bzzt_

" _This is Solomon! The sheep are people! The sheep are fucking people! Something is turning people into sheep! Blood and bodily fluids are contagious and do NOT use the meat for a barbecue! I'm fine right now, but it seems to affect people insanely fast! Zombie movie fast! Check for signs of infection! Body mass seems to appear_ ex nihilo, _but I can't be sure!"_

 _Bzzt_

" _Canberra is now under Biohazard Level 5 quarantine. Health and safety measures are advised. All civilians are to evacuate immediately. Animal Control tanks have been mobilized and incendiaries have been authorized to all Animal Control personnel. Please wait a moment for your updated emergency posting."_

 _Bzzt_

" _Deck Stacker down, PS-4. Khepri Gloriosus down, ME-1. Buster Borr down, FS-3. Anosillus down, GM-1. Zegga deceased, SA-1. Kuro no Kenshi deceased, SA-3. Illusion Killer deceased, KT-1."_

 _Bzzt_

" _This is Sever! The infected sheeple appear to be moving in herds down major roads. Avoid the roads!"_

 _Bzzt_

" _Myrtenaster down, WS-1. Ember Celica down, YL-4. Black Gambol down, BB-5. Mistress Rose down, MC-1."_

 _Bzzt_

" _This is Rocky Bruce, you know, from down south? The one that dated Loud Amy for about two months? Be warned, some of the rocks the Big White Sheila threw at us, well, they're uranium. Big bloody chunks of uranium. So yeah, stay away from any large hot rocks. If you can tell it's hot, you got too close. But on the bright side, now I don't need to get that vasectomy no more, 'ey?"_

….

What had been an Endbringer shelter was on fire and it was all Taylor's doing. Beads. So useful. Taylor Hebert rode through the skies, trying not to hurl, trying to forget as behind her the pyre burned and below her things that used to be human roamed. She was tempted to drop another bead, to keep dropping all her beads until there was nothing left but fire.

….

 **\- To be continued…**

….

A/N: There you go, heroically set fires! Don't forget to contribute to the TvTropes page, okay?

Please review, C&C welcome.

Until next time, this is Shadow, signing off.


	10. The Inevitable Endbringer Fight Part 2

A/N: Yes, there was a huge delay. Unfortunately, some things changed at work and I had to find a new equilibrium before I could get back to writing. Then it happened again. Then it happened again. Then I got hit with gastoenteritis. Not fun.

….

Toaru Majutsu no Taylor-chan: A Certain Mythic Archmage

by Shadow Crystal Mage

Chapter 9: The Inevitable Endbringer Fight Chapters! Part 2 – Actual Fighting Happens. Still Australia Jokes Though

Disclaimer: Worm created by Wildbow. Pathfinder by Paizo. All hail Gygax!

….

 _This thing is really inconvenient._

Eventually, Taylor found someplace to throw up. Fortunately, no one was around, so she was able to get her helmet up from over her mouth. A small part of her idly noted that given the many deficiencies of the design, redesigning her helmet should probably be given greater immediate priority when she got home.

It was a small, insignificant part, akin to a single mousy secretary taking notes as the entire office building of her brain when insane in shrieking horror from someone in HR deciding to hold a mandatory team building Twilight marathon. The mousy secretary headed back to her bolt hole to sort her notes while the Taylor Building, HQ of Taylor Inc. suffered technical difficulties and had to ask people to stand by.

In the office building of her mind, helpless Taylor Inc. employees were trapped in the auditorium of memory, watching endless reruns of blood, gore and sheep. Oh, the sheep. The bloody, gory sheep…

Taylor's stomach convulsed, and what was left of her dinner was emptied even further. Her throat burned with the sting of regurgitated stomach acid, and she tasted the lasagna and mushrooms they'd had for dinner, except sharper. The mousy secretary dutifully noted the desire to never eat meat again, and to ABSOLUTELY never, EVER try lamb, all of which was overpowered by the shrieking, terror-filled orgy of disgust, revulsion and horror playing out in the rest of the company.

She couldn't handle this. She couldn't, she was just Taylor Hebert, useless, ugly Taylor Hebert! She was an idiot who'd kept setting parts of the city on fire and was so pathetic she lost when she argued with herself! She caught sight of her reflection in a broken window. Hunched over, body language exhausted. Some specks of puke on her legs. Blood coated her arms and vest. In the afternoon sunlight, her cape looked dull and orange. She looked nothing like a hero at all, just a girl too old for Halloween playing dress-up. If it weren't for the absolutely bullshit powers she'd used in making them, the image would probably be compounded by a shabby and homemade-looking costume. So instead it looked like an impostor wearing some real hero's clothes.

" _I made everything myself either by hand or with powers."_

But she'd made it, made every single bit of it. She'd done the designing, the leather work, the armoring, the dyeing. The boots on her feet, the scabbard on her hip, even the underwear she was wearing so that the bodysuit wouldn't show any lines. Literally the only clothing she had on that she hadn't made herself were her socks. All of it added up to a costume fit for a hero, because that was who would be wearing it.

" _I'm a hero. I got the little card and everything."_

What sort of hero gets sick and panics over… over…

 _Blood. Gore. Sheep._

For a third time, Taylor's stomach convulsed. Fortunately, there wasn't much to throw out, and so she was stuck dry-heaving.

What kind of hero just throws up from thinking about _sheep?_

Alexandria wouldn't have thrown up. Eidolon wouldn't have thrown up. Legend wouldn't have thrown up.

So she couldn't either. **[1d20+24! 30!]**

She took a deep breath, let it out, straightened her back, stood tall, mostly by getting on top of the roiling ocean filled with the screaming desire to run, hide and puke and jumping up and down on it. She needed to act like Legend, so no more puking. No more running away. Deliberately, she activated a 1st tier power and passed it over herself with a flick of her wrist, methodically cleaning out the blood and puke stains, getting her appearance in order. After all, Legend always looked immaculate. She washed out her mouth with water from one of her containers to get the taste of puke out, then washed it down with a candy. Only then did she settle her helmet back on over her head. The re-purposed plastic buckle snapped into place with finality, tying down the scared little girl who had no place here, who didn't deserve to have a say right now, who was drowning in _**blood**_ and _ **gore**_ and _ **SHEEP!**_ and needed to be ignored. She wasn't needed right now. Solomon needed to be a hero.

Her horse-shaped projection was some distance away and about five feet off the ground. With shaky steps at first that eventually smoothed out, she strode towards the projection, then lifted off the ground and settled herself on its back.

It was time to get moving. Taking control of the projection, she ordered it to–

Solomon paused– heroically!– and first looked one way, and then another. "Where the heck am I?" Damn it, every street looked like the same suburb in this city!

….

 _01001001 00100000 01110111 01101001 01110011 01101000 00100000 01001001 00100000 01100011 01101111 01110101 01101100 01100100 00100000 01100100 01101111 00100000 01101101 01101111 01110010 01100101 00101110_

" _Dustbringer down, SA-3. Nazo no Yuusha X deceased, RG-5. Miss Bond down, OO-7. Arc Knight down, JN-1. Miló Akoúo̱ deceased, PR-3."_

 _01001001 00100000 01110111 01101001 01110011 01101000 00100000 01001001 00100000 01100011 01101111 01110101 01101100 01100100 00100000 01101101 01100001 01101011 01100101 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100010 01101001 01100111 01100111 01100101 01110010 00100000 01100100 01101001 01100110 01100110 01100101 01110010 01100101 01101110 01100011 01100101 00101110_

" _This is Skybreaker! Be warned, the sheep appear to be coordinating, I was nearly ambushed by two groups! Repeat, the sheep seem to be coordinating! Be– SHIT!"_

 _01001001 00100000 01110111 01101001 01110011 01101000 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101001 01101110 01100111 01110011 00100000 01100011 01101111 01110101 01101100 01100100 00100000 01100010 01100101 00100000 01100010 01100101 01110100 01110100 01100101 01110010 00101110_

" _Skybreaker deceased, OB-3. Lady Helheim down, GM-6. Säbelreiter down, FT-1. Lanzenreiter down, CC-3. Nazo no Yuusha X deceased, RN-9. Mystayrious Cape X down, TH-1. Mystayrious Cape X Alter down, TH-1."_

 _01001001 00100110 00100000 01001001 00100000 01110010 01100101 01100001 01101100 01101100 01111001 00100000 01101110 01100101 01100101 01100100 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01110010 01100101 01100011 01100001 01101100 01101001 01100010 01110010 01100001 01110100 01100101 00100000 01100110 01101111 01110010 00100000 01110000 01100101 01101111 01110000 01101100 01100101 00100000 01110111 01101000 01101111 00100111 01110011 00100000 01101101 01101111 01110110 01100101 01110010 00100000 01110000 01101111 01110111 01100101 01110010 00100000 01100011 01110101 01110100 01110011 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 01101101 00100000 01101111 01100110 01100110 00100000 01100110 01110010 01101111 01101101 00100000 01100011 01101111 01101110 01110100 01100001 01100011 01110100 00100000 01100110 01101111 01110010 00100000 01101100 01101111 01101110 01100111 00100000 01110000 01100101 01110010 01101001 01101111 01100100 01110011 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01110100 01101001 01101101 01100101 00101110_

" _This is Othala, our medical station is being overrun, we need Movers! We're keeping them back, but we need evac!"_

 _01010010 01100101 01100001 01101100 01101100 01111001 00101100 00100000 01110010 01100101 01110000 01100101 01100001 01110100 01100101 01100100 00100000 01101001 01101110 01100011 01101111 01110010 01110010 01100101 01100011 01110100 00100000 01100100 01100101 01100001 01110100 01101000 00100000 01101110 01101111 01110100 01101001 01100110 01101001 01100011 01100001 01110100 01101001 01101111 01101110 01110011 00100000 01110011 01101111 01110101 01101110 01100100 00100000 01100001 01100010 01110011 01110101 01110010 01100100 00101110 00100000_

" _Heterodyne down, AG-1. Choudenshi Sanda deceased, YL-4. Stoneward down, WK-1. DaiRockuTenMao down, NB-1. Silence deceased, SS-6. Eromanga Beer Bruce deceased, RB-5. Ebony Falcon down, BR-9. Velvet Thunder down, BR-9. Argent Silver down, YS-4."_

 _01000010 01100001 01100011 01101011 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110100 01100001 01110011 01101011 00100000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01101000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00101110_

" _This is Sherringford from the Thinker group, the Simurgh has assumed control of all animal life in Canberra barring the insects! Repeat, she– SHIT! SHE GOT THE BUGS, SHE GOT THE–"_

 _01000011 01101000 01100101 01100011 01101011 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01101001 01101110 01110100 01100101 01110010 01101110 01100001 01101100 00100000 01100001 01101110 01110100 01101001 00101101 01101001 01101110 01110011 01100101 01100011 01110100 00100000 01100011 01101111 01110101 01101110 01110100 01100101 01110010 01101101 01100101 01100001 01110011 01110101 01110010 01100101 01110011 00101110 00100000 01001110 01101111 00100000 01101001 01101110 01110011 01100101 01100011 01110100 01110011 00100000 01100100 01100101 01110100 01100101 01100011 01110100 01100101 01100100 00100000 01101001 01101110 01110011 01101001 01100100 01100101 00100000 01101000 01100001 01110010 01100100 01110111 01100001 01110010 01100101 00101110_

" _Sherringford deceased, MH-1. Nazo no Yuusha X down, GD-2. Redhawk deceased, JM-1. Blackhawk down, JM-2. Yellowhawk deceased, JM-1. Bluehawk deceased, JM-2. Whitehawk deceased, JM-1. Meltdowner down, SI-5. Frenda deceased, SI-5. Regend down, KS-7. Void Lizza deceased, US-1. Sciuridae Lass deceased, SG-3. Captain Hammer deceased, NF-6. Kill Puddle deceased, DP-3. Nazo no Yuusha X deceased, GD-2. Island Mask deceased, ES-3. Santa Kamen deceased, TS-1."_

 _01000001 01101110 01110100 01101001 00101101 01101001 01101110 01110011 01100101 01100011 01110100 00100000 01100100 01100101 01100001 01100100 01101100 01111001 00100000 01101110 01100101 01110101 01110010 01101111 01110100 01101111 01111000 01101001 01101110 00100000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01101101 01100001 01111000 01101001 01101101 01110101 01101101 00100000 01100101 01100110 01100110 01101001 01100011 01101001 01100101 01101110 01100011 01111001 00101110_

" _This is Eclipse Phase– !"_

 _01010010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01110101 01110100 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01100100 01110010 01101111 01101110 01100101 00101110 00100000 01010111 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01101000 01100001 01100100 00100000 01110011 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100010 01100101 01100101 01101110 00100000 01110100 01110010 01111001 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01110111 01100001 01110010 01101110 00100000 01110101 01110011 00100000 01100001 01100010 01101111 01110101 01110100 00111111_

" _Eclipse Phase deceased, FF-6. Steelheart deceased, RT-1. Talent Breaker down, AS-6. Governor Philippines deceased, KR-4. Sky Ranger Gavin deceased, PH-9. X-OR down, FR-9. Zaido Pulis Pangkalawakan deceased, GM-7. Machineman deceased, SK-4."_

 _01001110 01101111 01110100 01100101 00111010 00100000 01110010 01110101 01101110 00100000 01110000 01110010 01101111 01101010 01100101 01100011 01110100 01101001 01101111 01101110 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01101100 01101001 01101011 01100101 01101100 01111001 00100000 01100101 01100110 01100110 01100101 01100011 01110100 00100000 01101111 01101110 00100000 01010000 01101000 01101001 01101100 01101001 01110000 01110000 01101001 01101110 01100101 00100000 01110000 01101111 01101100 01101001 01110100 01101001 01100011 01110011 00101110_

" _This is Elsecaller, everyone be warned, the sheep seem to be going after Endbringer shelters! Shelter 04-85 is under attack!"_

 _01001001 00100111 01101101 00100000 01110011 01101111 01110010 01110010 01111001 00101110_

" _Endbringer Shelter 04-85 has fallen."_

 _01001001 00100111 01101101 00100000 01110011 01101111 01110010 01110010 01111001 00100000 01001001 00100000 01100110 01100001 01101001 01101100 01100101 01100100 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00101110_

" _This is Nazo no Yuusha X, yes, the one who seems to die a lot, I've sighted some kind of mutant dinosaurs coordinating with the sheep! Repeat, there are mutant dinosaur things with the sheep!"_

 _01000101 01101101 01110101 01110011 00111111 00100000 01001101 01110101 01110100 01100001 01110100 01100101 01100100 00100000 01100101 01101101 01110101 01110011 00111111_

" _Nazo no Yuusha X deceased, SQ-5. One Way Road deceased, RG-3. Arash deceased, BR-1. "_

 _01001001 00100000 01110111 01101001 01110011 01101000 00100000 01001001 00100000 01100011 01101111 01110101 01101100 01100100 00100000 01100100 01101111 00100000 01101101 01101111 01110010 01100101 00101110_

" _This is Mang Aswang, can confirm that there are mutant emus coordinating with the sheep. They appear to be partially mutated, since some have ram horns and wool in some places, but are not completely converted. Be advised many of them no longer have wings, repeat, no wings, they have some kind of hoof claws instead. Likely other animals have been mutated as well. Where the fuck are they all coming from? Fuck this conti– "_

 _01001001 00100000 01110111 01101001 01110011 01101000 00100000 01001001 00100000 01100011 01101111 01110101 01101100 01100100 00100000 01100010 01100101 00100000 01100110 01110010 01100101 01100101 00101110_

….

Bzzt

" _Mang Aswang deceased, SS-7…"_

Solomon tuned out the armband. The medical station was deserted. Tents had been knocked down and there were the fallen bodies of people and sheep and things in between wearing the clothes of the nurses and bits of singlet and shorts and barbecue sauce. Some had been shot execution style. There was a lack of unused medical supplies strewn among the mess, however, and Solomon hoped this meant people had been able to evacuate. At the least, her bag of paradrugs wasn't among the wreckage. She hoped that was a good sign.

A few of the sheep and what she now knew to be mutated emus had been lingering in the area. Perhaps the Simurgh's control over them wasn't as absolute as had been hinted at over her armband?

She didn't hang around to fight them creatures, instead just dropping a bead that exploded into flames behind her, growing into a sphere of heat and concussive force that was more than enough to deal with the things as she turned her projection northward. She outran the nauseously delicious smell of cooking lamb and poultry as she willed her projection forward towards the Simurgh for lack of anywhere else specific to go to. She had ridiculously overpowered abilities she needed to use on it, because no one else could.

Then she heard the cries.

She should have hesitated. After all, the Simurgh was north, right? But no. A hero saved everyone. She turned toward the cries, her projection flying over buildings as she made straight for the source of the sounds. She reached down to the scabbard on one hip, drawing out a length of black metal with a grip at one end. The club fit in her hand like it belonged there, as if speaking to some kind of Neanderthal instinct to splatter the brains of her enemies to death with a stick. It was a feeling that was disturbingly neutral about whether it was heroic or not. It _shouldn't_ be, but…

Ahead was a group of sheep clustered around something. From her approach high above the street, Solomon could make out three figures, two of whom were down on the ground. One was apparently unconscious, since they weren't moving. Another seemed unable to get up, lying on the ground and trying to keep the sheep back with what seemed to be sprays of corrosive sparkles that ate through flesh like glitter from hell. Only the third was still mobile, but obviously tiring. They moved with an eerie, paranatural smoothness, evading the sheep by the barest margins, the knives in their hands stabbing with pinpoint precision to deliver instantaneous death through eyes and necks. By the way they were slumping and swaying, they were also clearly exhausted. Or possibly infected and mutating, given all the blood and other bodily fluids on them.

Solomon charged, a power already preparing itself. She made her horse projection head up, out of range as she went down, letting gravity take her the last twenty feet and hitting the ground near the three in the approved 3-point landing. Her knees told her how much they hated her as she unleashed lightning in all directions. The lightning curved unnaturally– or perhaps paranaturally– around the three parahumans as they lashed out at every mutated sheep within thirty feet. The air filled with the smell of charred meat and death and annoyingly well-cooked mutton as lightning blasted them all. Body fat fried and burned, and bodily fluids flashed to their gaseous states as the sheep all died.

The bare handful of sheep just beyond the perfect sphere the lightning encompassed 'baah'd in shock, stumbling back in surprise. The one with the knives threw them both, each taking a sheep in the eye in what Solomon would have called a total bullshit move if she couldn't also do the same thing herself. Corrosive glitter tagged a few more as Solomon sent more lightning at the survivors, the energy arcing from one to the others around it. The area around them was soon filled with dead ovines with surprising suddenness. It was all very quick and methodical, with no wasted movement, as smooth as if she'd planned it over a table complete with little figurines and arrows pointing at targets.

Taylor Hebert's stomach would have clenched at the fresh waves of char and meat assaulting her nose, would have heaved despite previous spirited attempts to void her stomach. Solomon ignored all that as irrelevant to heroics that needed to be done and turned toward the girl covered in blood and other intimate fluids.

Who... seemed to be shaking and heaving, before hastily pulling down the hood she was wearing over her head and pulling off a portion of the mask on her face. Solomon smoothly stepped aside as the girl heaved and made spirited efforts to void her stomach. From the smell, it seems she'd eaten lasagna recently.

Leaving her to her own devices for the moment, Solomon turned to the other two, taking quick note of their costumes. Sparkles was clad in a combination of purple and magenta, including a purple visor and long two-tone hair, with some kind of six-pointed starburst on her chest, so Solomon tentatively pegged her a hero of some kind, since villains rarely did the chest insignia thing. It seemed vaguely familiar. Probably part of some advertising campaign. Most likely corporate instead of PRT, if only because of the hair. One foot was pointing entirely the wrong way. The unconscious one was just a kid. Either she was really small for her age or she was just 10. Her costume was vigilante off-the-rack chic, consisting of steel-toed boots, thick socks, knee pads, cargo shorts, a blue jacket she'd zipped up to the neck, one of those black cloth mouth masks bikers wore and visor-like ski goggles. Long red hair was partially obscured by a bandage around her head. Any blood on it was mostly implication.

There was no instinctive leeriness at the girl being a redhead. That was Taylor's hangup. Solomon knelt down, tapping into the medical Thinker knowledge granted by her equipment to examine the girl. Part of this involved prying up the goggles over one eye to check for a reaction. She tapped her limited emulator, before touching her with a striker power specifically geared to simultaneously heal any injuries, remove any infection of hellsheep virus and purge tiredness.

As Solomon stood, the one in purple was just starting her own dry heaves, with extra pained overtones from the misaligned limb. The other one– dark body suit made of some material she couldn't readily identify so probably either high-end armor or Tinkertech, belt with throwing knives and daggers (which are not the same thing), hood, cloak that looked like someone had run it partway through a shredder– was wiping her mouth with the end of one of her cloak tassels, looking in concern at the blood on her hands and basically everywhere else.

"Are you okay? Do you feel feverish? Itchy? In pain?" Solomon asked.

The parahuman looked at her, nonplussed at the questions. "What?"

"Those seem the likely symptoms if you have been infected by whatever the sheep are carrying," Solomon said. "What with you being covered in infected blood and all."

Solomon was mildly surprised to see them sigh. "Of fucking _course_ it's infected. And here I was only worrying about poison. Silly me." They nodded to her. "I'm Foresight, by the way."

"Solomon," she replied. "If you want, I can heal any infection but I'd need to touch you. And possibly scrub the blood and bodily fluids off you, or else you'll just get infected again."

"You can heal?" Foresight said, surprised.

"Yes," Solomon said mathematically. "May I?"

The Foresight warily held out her hands. Accompanied to the sounds of dry-heaving, Solomon used her really useful 1st tier power to clean the blood off of her costume, and spent the next few seconds trying to get all likely infected material off before finally reaching forward and taking the girl's arm, activating her lesser emulator. The girl shuddered suddenly as her body was abruptly healed, any latent diseases purged as her fatigue suddenly vanished. "Whoa," she breathed as Solomon let her go. "That's… new."

"Take a moment to get used to it, and if you can keep an eye out, please?" Solomon said, before turning towards the last person there, who had just finished having her own upward gastrointestinal episode as the redhead next to her began to rouse. She took the initiative and figured they wouldn't object too much to having a power used on them to get puke off their chin and front. Or get her leg back on straight too, for that matter. "Hello. Do you want me to heal you?"

One more burn through the limited emulator later, and the one in purple had both feet properly pointed in the right direction and was no longer in pain. Solomon also had to new names to know now. The girl in purple was Sunset Dust (Hero, Corporate, Hasbro), and the redhead was Move Point (vigilante, heroic, way underaged, would probably be nabbed by the Wards or equivalent as soon as this was over if she lived that long).

"Well," Foresight said, "Thanks, I suppose. How lucky and convenient someone with grab bag lightning and healing infectious diseases powers just happened to come by right when we needed it."

Solomon sensed that Foresight might be a smartass.

"You're welcome," she said graciously, because she was a hero. Sure, Taylor might have suggested drenching this one, but heroes didn't do that sort of thing unless the person in question was on fire. "We should probably get moving. I doubt we'd enjoy being surrounded by sheep again."

"Obviously," Foresight said with the sort of atmospheric humidity usually found in the heart of the Sahara. She turned to Move Point. "You up for another jump yet?"

"Give me a sec to check where we are," Move Point said in a strange, surprisingly granny-like voice and tone for someone who seemed to be on the hormone-deficient side of puberty as she checked her armband device. "I guess we don't need to go to the medical station anymore, so… "

"It's closed anyway," Solomon said. "Sheep attack."

Foresight swore. Sunset Dust grimaced. Move Point sighed. "Fuck this place, the Simurgh can have it."

"Over my cold dead corpse and nuclear contingency," Solomon said evenly.

The three stared at her.

"Ooo-kay, pump the edge brakes a little there," Foresight said. "You're not some kind of crossbow-wielding manic with a deluded predator obsession, after all." She paused. "Are you?"

"What's wrong with crossbows?" Solomon said, offended. She was good with her crossbow, if she said so herself.

"Er," Sunset Dust said, inching away slightly, "you don't actually _have_ a…"

"Not right now, no," Solomon said, aware of the uranium sample she'd picked up on the way here, technically stuffed in an adjacent dimension. No point in getting radiation damaged, after all. "But I'll figure out something just as good when I get to her."

Move Point boldly stepped behind Foresight, using the taller girl as a human shield, as if she expected Solomon to fission react and explode right then and there anyway.

 _Bzzt_

" _T-this is Mystayrious Cape X at Canberra Hospital. The hospital and attached Endbringer shelter is under attack by sheep and weird dinosaur things and… rabid koala? ARGH! Shit, they're climbing the walls, they're climbing the walls! We need backup! Send help!"_

 _Bzzt_

Move Point sighed again. "I repeat: fuck this place," she said, sounding like a granny complaining about the kids playing on her lawn as she checked her armband. "It's not far. I can get us there. I just need to make some calculations…"

She meant that literally, pulling out a magnetic compass, a scientific calculator, a protractor, some string and chalk from a hard case on her belt. Sunset Dust, apparently used to this, helped hold the other end of the string.

"Huh," Solomon said, tilting her head, bemused. _"Actual_ calculations. With math and everything."

"I know, right?" Foresight said. "Every time Henshin says stuff like that she's just pulling stuff out of her ass. I sort of respect Move Point more for actually doing math. "

Solomon stared northward for a moment, where there were flashes of light and color high in the air and a small white shape in the middle of it all.

"Did you have somewhere else to be?" Foresight said as she checked her knives. There was an implication of raised eyebrow. Bitch.

Solomon waved a hand negligently. "I was heading to punch the Simurgh in the face, but that can wait. This is more important." Remembering her projection, she looked up and let herself drift upwards.

"Hey, where are you– is that a flying horse?" Foresight said, hands pausing. The other two looked up as well. Move Point's chalk froze.

"Don't be silly. It's a projection that looks like a flying horse," Solomon said as she brought it down to ground level. "There's no such things as flying horses, after all."

"Ah, of course. Silly me," Foresight said blandly.

"Damn it, I've lost my place!" Move Point cried.

….

Move Point's teleportation apparently used herself as a reference point when teleporting beyond line of sight, which was why math needed to be involved when teleporting blind at a distance. They arrived within sight Canberra Hospital and it's attached Endbringer Shelter with appropriate heroic aplomb. Meaning they showed up fifteen feet off the ground and only Solomon's quick reflexes managed to save Foresight and Sunset Dust from a fall that could have broken their ankles. Move Point, upon realizing they weren't at ground level, merely teleported again and put herself there instinctively. Then teleported again when she realized she was surrounded by sheep.

Sunset Dust released corrosive particles as soon as she got her bearings, hanging awkwardly as Solomon kept her out of the ground. Foresight, she threw. She moved like she already knew it would happen, shifting her balance back and forth as if they'd done this before, long knives glinting in her hands as she arced smoothly through the air. With measured, confident smoothness, she landed in a conveniently clear area surrounded by sheep and began to cut their throats open, dodging the spurts of blood and attempts to attack her with all the casualness of someone walking in their own home. With her tiredness purged she was moving as smoothly as a CGI nightmare, stepping between and around sheep as if it were all a choreographed dance she'd practiced for weeks. Blood flowed freely.

"Thinker?" Solomon asked Sunset Dust, still dangling from her hand as various flavors of mutated sheep screamed in pain beneath them, dust eating through their bodies as the pavement remained unmarred.

"Definitely some kind of Thinker," Sunset Dust agreed. "Could you find somewhere to put me down?"

Metal shutters had rolled down over the hospital's windows, and they weren't the only parahumans who had arrived on the scene. There were Blasters on roof, shooting down into the sheep for technicolor fire and exotic also-technicolor energies, along with some Tinkers doing the same. Some of the windows where open, with security guards, nurses and volunteers shooting down with shotguns, but the sheep-koala mutants had made them seal up windows lest they get in. Some had cracked, but the insides had been secured by some kind of steel shutters (Solomon wondered if that was standard. From what she'd seen of this continent, it probably was). A Brute in tights with a military camo pattern had uprooted a traffic sign and was swinging it at the sheep, sending them flying, but the sign was clearly breaking, and the Brute had a desperate look in his eyes. Someone in a blue bodysuit who looked like they were made of wood seemed to be making more headway, and seemed less afraid of getting overwhelmed. A figure in power armor with a red scarf at the neck was wielding what looked like two cartoon drills stuck together to form an outrageous double-ended spear... thingy and laying around them enthusiastically. From the sound of it, there were other defenders on the side of the hospital she couldn't see.

She didn't hesitate now, joining in the defense enthusiastically as Sunset Dust joined the blasters on the roof. Solomon threw herself at a particularly thick knot of sheep-mutated wildlife as she activated a tenth-tier power she had been afraid to touch back in Brockton for fear of being accused of arson.

She was kind of surprised nothing happened to her vision. It didn't darken or brighten. No aspects like motion or color became more or less prominent. She wasn't suddenly seeing in infrared or ultraviolet, or some other exotic wavelength. Her vision stayed completely normal, despite every inch of her body and equipment for all intents and purposes bursting into flame. It felt like a mildly warm but refreshing breeze blowing over her body.

To the sheep she was landing on, it felt exactly like a body-sized mass had just burst into intense flame as it dropped onto them: really fucking hot. Those who didn't catch fire on contact with her tried to stumble back, seemingly blinded by the light she emitted. Her body seemed to move even smoother as she dashed rapidly through the sheep, striking them barehanded and setting them on fire with a touch, bodies combusting from their wool's own oil and body fat. She moved with the dexterity of a flame dancing on a wick, as opposed to her usual dexterity of a fish flopping on a deck, striking at the sheeple with every part of her body she could, furiously ignoring the cringing, heaving part of herself that wailed and cried at the fire and death she caused.

Unexpected help arrived in the form of Foresight, who moved to pincer the sheep, giving them a choice between death by incineration or death by surgical strike. There was no time to be envious of the smoothness and archetypal deadly grace of the other parahuman's moves, of how she moved like this was a dance and had been the only one to practice there moves. Issues of inadequacy was Taylor's hang up. Solomon was a hero. She didn't have them.

Sheep burned and died. They died screaming. They died panicking. They died trying to slam her with their hooves or ram her with their horns or tear her apart with their hybrid wool-covered emu-raptor claws. Her protective field kept her from feeling a thing. They died massing against her with sheer numbers. They burned en masse as she punched back, her fists breaking bone and making roast on contact. The ground beneath her blackened and charred, what little blood that fell drying and turning black. She moved systematically, keeping the hospital to her left as she took out the sheep, launching explosive beads at distant sheep, sometimes dropping them straight at her feet if she needed some space. The force and heat of the explosions was strangely refreshing. Other parahumans began to close in, using her as an incinerator, pushing the sheep towards her as they could. The sheep had the option to burn or… whatever alternate means of death the other parahumans had.

Before her fire ran out, the hospital was clear of danger but for ruined and smoldering plants and the strong and completely inappropriate smell of delicious well-cooked mutton. Because of all that throwing up, she was now hungry, _ugh._

There were no cheers, only relief as many people almost collapsed where they stood, tired.

Solomon didn't let herself be one of them as she floated herself over the burning ground, swaying slightly, her head buzzing with the adrenaline rush of the fight. She firmly locked down on any heaving, stomach clenching, or unseemly desires for a mental breakdown. It was getting easier now after her… what, third, fourth real fight? Did mutant sheep count as a real fight? At least with the cloak on she couldn't see her own hands shaking.

Up on the roof, one of the Blasters let out a warning, sending a gout of… well, it was some kind of energy that moved through the air like glowing water, striking something down the street out of her view. She heard the now-familiar sounds of mutated hooves on pavement, heard cries as the other defenders on the ground got each others attention.

She still had more fire.

Solomon charged out into the street, following the direction of the blaster powers flying overhead, taking care not to set anything on fire by passing it. She could hear footsteps behind her following suit but keeping a safe distance back as she met the mutant sheep of various sizes– there were a bunch of cat and dog-sized ones mixed in with this group– and once more dove into their midst, disconcertingly delicious smells briefly wafting into the air once more…

….

 _Bzzt_

" _The Simurgh has been repelled. Biohazard quarantine is still in effect. Please stand by for further information. The Simurgh has been repelled. Biohazard quarantine is still in effect. Please stand by for further information. Nazo no Yuusha X deceased…_ "

There was no room for a ragged cheer. There certainly didn't seem to be anything worth cheering about.

No one in the impromptu group that Solomon had found herself in broke formation at the announcement, besieged as they were. Behind them, the ambulance that had been pressed as emergency transport rocked slightly as some of the children pressed toward the windows to look, only to be pulled back by the adults, as if not being seen by the sheep would keep them from being hurt. The unconscious form of Nazo no Yuusha X of the many false alarms had been tossed onto the roof to wait out her 'death', the front of her costume stained with the blood she'd thrown up before she'd collapsed.

The villain Party Time stood amidst a small crowd of her clones, her pink party dress pristine compared to theirs, which were covered in gore. Gore was the latest fashion in Canberra, apparently. Everyone was wearing it. Her clones, made of air and latex and powers, weilded various long blunt instruments scavenged around them, mostly well-used tree branches, although one had a stop sign ripped from out of the ground, and another had a fire axe. For some reason, the fireaxe had a built-in bottle opener and a sticker by a local beer manufacturer reminding users not to beer and fight fires at the same time. She and her clones made up most of their muscle, although meat shields they weren't. For one, they popped pretty easily, so balloon-wave tactics were used to take advantage of the time they had before one hit made them explode in a burst of disgustingly flesh-colored rubber. They rushed at the sheep, pushing them back by sheer numbes and swinging their weapons recklessly to get one or if they were lucky two hits in. When the clones at the front inevitably popped, the ones behind them would catch there dropped weapons with practiced ease and step right into their place. It was a not-surprisingly loud form of combat as many human-shaped ballons exploded every few seconds.

Sunset Dust had stayed with her, using her powers to spray sheep from the roof of the ambulance and keeping Nazo no Yuusha X from sliding off. Her corrosive dust could be set to either eat through living matter or non-living matter (some kind of Manton effect thing) but not both at the same time, so she carefully made sure the real Party Time wasn't in her range as she blasted the sheep around the immune balloon clones.

Standing next to the Ambulance was the nuisance villain who called himself The Gentleman, who handled their defense. His striker power caused air to briefly seemingly harden into an elastic, allowing him to singlehandedly protect a large area by creating a pseudo-wall of rubber-like air.

Among the sheep, trying to draw them away from the ambulance were some guy named Imperia who projected a Shaker effect that caused anyone caught in it to move towards him no matter which direction they went, and his partner, Gladius, who used a sword that seemed to transfer a disproportionate amount of kinetic energy to whatever it touched, which caused a lot of interesting slice, splat and splash, as appropriate.

Solomon was with them, making sure no one got behind Imperia, the greatsword in her hands cleaving through the sheep with only mass and muscle and, okay, tinkerteh-enhanced strength, but all the slicing was on the sword! The quarters were too close for her area effect powers, the targets too many for her precision ones. It would be something she'd need to correct when she got home. She wasn't built to fight an army too stupid to be afraid or surrender, not when she couldn't be indiscriminate. She fell back on her seemingly limitless energy, an forcefield too strong for anything short of military explosive ordinance, and a body that can benchpress quadruple digits.

Eventually, they ran out of sheep, clearing the area around the ambulance. There was no fire this time, so no one was assailed by disturbing barbecue smells.

Time… hadn't passed in a blur. Things hadn't all flowed together to make her lose track of time, leaving her with only flashes of memory. Yet that seemed exactly what had happen, like the perverse evil twin of time flying when you were having a good time. Things had just kept happening, and found herself once more being caught by the flow. It seemed like she was watching things from outside herself as they escorted the ambulance towards the nearest shelter, where they momentarily had to clear the sheep that had gathered in the front.

The others stood guard as people got out of the ambulance, Solomon checking them for signs of infection or any open wounds before letting them through. Even the children. _Especially_ the children. The announcement had come through that the infection took hold very fast in prepubescents. Taylor Hebert would have shuddered at the thought of how they'd found that out. Solomon didn't have that luxury.

Night was falling, and there was a distinct lack of streetlights. Power hadn't been restored to the city yet, though it looked like the Tinkers would be able to work on it now. The hospitals were running on generators and were overcrowded to boot. Unfortunately, with the sheep still around it hadn't been safe to turn off the lockdown measures and set up emergency facilities in the parking lots.

Already, some parts of the horizon were glowing with the undulating orange light of fire (Which she _definitely_ hadn't caused, no sir, it must have been some other parahuman with incendiary grenades! You can't prove anything!). Despite this, it was strangely quiet. Sirens and other noises tended to attract the stray sheep.

 _Bzzt_

" _Um, is this thing on? This is Mang Bruce calling for help, we were just having a karaoke victory party in the park when these susmariyosep sheep showed up around the time we started setting off the fireworks– "_

Solomon facepalmed. Seriously, fuck this continent.

With a groan, she checked the location on her armband and began to float her way towards it…

….

It was a commonly known but commonly ignored fact that the PRT was not an international body, having jurisdiction only in the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico and the Conch Republic (don't ask). Still, responding to Endbringers required an international response, and as the oldest organization with the most infrastructure, the most resources, the most Tinkers and being based in the US, the PRT generally took charge of the aftermath of Endbringer attacks until they could be safely handed off to the local authorities of whichever country had been attacked.

Many people, officials bidding for re-election (who were _probably_ people, but given the stuff they often managed to sink to, it was depressing to think of them that way) and national pride groups objected strongly to this 'post-globalization American para-imperialism' and felt they should take charge of their own destiny, show they were just as good or better than an organization that just happened to be based in the US, we don't need no stinkin' foreigners! The ones who tried inevitably ended up bitching at the lack of aid from the international community and either had to establish a media black out around the circumstances of the aftermath of the Endbringer attack, or were completely unable to due to lack of manpower, money, food, supplies, shelter, order, OH GOD HELP US, WE'RE SORRY FOR CALLING THE PRT NAMES, PLEASE GIVE US FREE STUFF SINCE WE HAVE NO MONEY!

And grumbles aside, the PRT was experienced at dealing with the aftermath of such situations. The cities in ruins, the dead, the homeless resulting from the city in ruins… they had experience patching together the quick publicity stunt band-aid and leaving the long, hard work to the local government, whatever was left of it, while they dealt with whatever exotic mess had been left behind.

In this case, that had been a fast acting, multi-vector mutagenic virus that mutated any vertebrate and some invertebrates that came into contact with it into sheep, released during the confusion of the attack. The invertebrates ended up acting as carriers, and given how it was near physically impossible to make sure you've gotten to every infected ant and flea in an area the size of a city, someone was already pulling up plans to seal off Canberra, scorch the earth around it, and pray that Australia's typical lethality would do the rest.

In other words, the typcal response for something getting to Australia and going out of control, again.

The Australian government had sighed about losing a nice area that was green and had water and resigned itself to moving the center of government to what was left of Sydney. After all, that's where people already thought it was anyway.

In the meantime, decontamination procedures were set up on top of the usual procedures to cursorily check that no one (employed by the PRT) had obviously gone nuts from being around the Simurgh (villains were out of luck on that score, but who'd notice?). In most cases, the tracking information from one's armband, and the fact it hadn't blown you up for being around the Simurgh too long, sufficed to act as proof that you were as sane as you were likely to get.

There had still followed a series of distressingly chemical showers and standing around in a too-hot and then too-cold room getting decontaminated, which hadn't taken place until the next day, and only after her armband had notified her it was needed. Solomon hadn't slept, instead wandering the night like some kind of edgy anti-hero who had sworn eternal vengeance against evil after their parents had been shot on the way home from the movies. Why sleep? She had a power to remove fatige and exhaustion, and what kind of hero would she been if she stopped to take a nap when people were suffering under the onslaught of evil mutant biotinker sheep?

She didn't find much. Apparently even evil mutant biotinker sheep had to sleep. She killed the ones she found, reproting how much larger and distressingly anthropomorphic they'd gotten. She spent an hour watching one fall asleep and slowly get bigger as it rested, like some kind of hellish balloon. She used a power to call up a darkness that devoured to kill it and those around it when they started developing concerning armor plates.

Solomon had eventually found her bags, both completely empty of paradrugs, sticky and smelling faintly of Mountain Dew, blood and other organic things. There was a sheep's head in one of them. The other held a six-pack of beer, a six-pack of Mountain Dew, and a sheet of paper filled with various messages of thanks.

She threw out the head and did her best to decontaminate the bags. Someone was happy to take the beer and caffeine drinks off her hands as PRT troopers wearing armored space-suit-like bio-warfare armor began to roll into the devastated city and took over the evacuation and extermination. Smoke had begun to rise and gunfire echoed through the air as she was cleared to return to Brockton Bay, asked to quite firmly so that she wouldn't get in the PRT (and local PRT affilate's) way. Clutching the sheet of paper in hands that definitely didn't shake, she headed home.

The basement of the house seemed strangely mundane when she appeared in it. Stepping partially through the portal to her pocket dimension, enough for her telepathic links to her projections to activate, she threw in the bags and told them what to do with them. Then she headed upstairs, shedding her costume piece by piece. Outside, the bright, noontime sun seemed obscenely cheerful, the suburban quiet ominously still. The TV was on, the local news giving an update about the Endbringer attack.

She found her dad passed out in front of the TV, a cup of cold coffee next to him. She paused, before turning away and heading upstairs to the bathroom. She shed her wetsuit-like underlayer on the tiles before she stepped into the shower and turned the heat up full blast.

Finally bereft of every trapping of heroism, no longer Solomon, Taylor Hebert collapsed into a ball of nerves and started to shakes as the water tried to wash away a city's worth of filth, blood, gore, and the linger sell of sheep barbeque.

A small, insignificant part, akin to a single mousy secretary taking notes remembered to shut the door properly so her dad wouldn't walk in on her as the Taylor Building, HQ of Taylor Inc. finally had too much of his shit and shut down for the day.

….

 **\- To be continued…**

….

A/N: Yes, I know it took too damn long. Yes, I know you're disappointed at the lack of a Simugh fight. Yes, I know you're going to loudly proclaim about all the spells that should totally kill an Endbringer in one hit. Congratultions, you have the plot for your own Taylor fic. PM when you write it, hmm?

….

 **OMAKE!**

….

All right people, let's do this one more time…

My name is Taylor B. Hebert, I was stuck inside a disgusting locker, and got weird powers out of it. I'm pretty sure you know the rest.

You see I saved the city, fell in love with a girl, we started dating, saved the city some more, maybe too much, my relationship got testy, made some dicey money choices (don't invest in a zombie-themed restaurant), weeks have passed, blah blah blah, I broke my back, my head got bitten off, a drone flew in my face, I buried my emotions, my girlfriend and I split up but I handled it like a champ. I maybe cried in the shower a little. Okay, a lot. Now, no matter how many hits I take, I always get back up. I had some time to work on myself. Did you know that sea-horses mate for life? Could you imagine a sea-horse meeting another sea-horse and then making it work? She wanted me and I... got scared. I think I broke her heart. Flash forward, I'm in my secret base doing some arts and crafts, Tinkering, gettin' strong. When suddenly this weird thing happened. And I gotta say weird things happen to me a lot but this was really weird. I was in Brocktonport, but not my Brocktonport. And then out of nowhere this girl tried to decapitate me. Not the first time that's happened. Hi, I'm the Whispering Tyrant!

…

All right people, let's do this one more time...

My name is Taylor C. Hebert, I was stuck inside a disgusting locker, and got weird powers out of it. I'm pretty sure you know the rest.

You see I stepped on the school, then kinda stepped on the city, then killed the Simurgh then ate the Simurgh then everyone tried to kill me, then I kinda accidentally mindraped a bunch of people who were trying to kill me, then I punch Alexandria to India, weeks have passed, blah blah blah, I broke my school, moved to Arcadia, a drone flew in my face, I buried a supervillian by accident, my dad and I split up but I handled it like a champ. Now, no matter how many hits I take, I always get back up. Mostly because I kinda don't notice them unless Alexandria goes for my head or something, and then I fall over. I had some time to work on myself. Did you know that sea-horses mate for life? Could you imagine a sea-horse meeting another sea-horse and then making it work? Ugh, who'd want to be stuck with sea-horse drama for life? Flash forward, I'm in my apartment planning to find Leviathan and eat him, gettin' strong. When suddenly this weird thing happened. And I gotta say weird things happen to me a lot but this was really weird. I was in Brocktonville, but not my Brocktonville. Also there was this creepy zombie.

My name is Taylor Hebert, and I'm the S-class Pseudo-Endbringer called the Endslayer.

…

All right people, let's do this one more time...

My name is Taylor G. Hebert, I was stuck inside a disgusting locker, and got weird powers out of it. I'm pretty sure you know the rest.

You see I saved the city, messed with some villains minds, saved the city some more, maybe too much, my home life got testy so I Mastered my dad and now we're okay, made some dicey money choices (don't invest in a Gazebo-themed restaurant), weeks have passed, blah blah blah, I broke a nail, my Gazebo bit some heads off, a drone flew in my face, I buried Emma alive. Now, no matter how many hits I take, I always get back up. I had some time to work on myself. Did you know that sea-horses mate for life? Could you imagine a sea-horse meeting another sea-horse and then making it work, instead of the first sea-horse betraying the other sea-horse for a bitch and eventually getting buried alive? Me neither. Flash forward, I'm in my Gazebo, patrolling, planning to mess with Tattletale so she tries to make out with Faultline, gettin' strong. When suddenly this weird thing happened. And I gotta say weird things happen to me a lot but this was really weird. I was in Brocktownsville, but not my Brocktownsville. Also there was this giant monster and a zombie. Obviously I had to do something! So of course I tried binding them to my will. Hi, I'm Persona!

…

All right people, let's do this one more time...

My name is Taylor S. Hebert, I was stuck inside a disgusting locker, and got weird powers out of it. I'm pretty sure you know the rest.

You see I stomped the Merchants, worked on reconnecting with my dad, saved some playground equipment, went abroad, saw some sheep, made some dicey money choices (Don't invest in Mountain Dew-flavored beer), weeks have passed, blah blah blah, I died, I woke up, a drone flew in my face, I buried Emma in legal fees, made a minion of this girl I met in the mall to keep her out of trouble. Now, no matter how many hits I take, I always get back up. I had some time to work on myself. Did you know that you could generate rolling nuclear explosions? Could you imagine, a nuclear bomb that kept exploding over a period of time instead of all in one go? Flash forward, I'm painting some playground equipment and hoping to get done before the food trucks arrive, doing good in the community. When suddenly this weird thing happened. And I gotta say weird things happen to me a lot but this was really weird. And that's when a giant, a zombie and a gazebo complete with a tea table and someone to drink it fell on me.

…

The phone in PRT Agent Gregg's office rang.

"Agent Gregg speaking," he said, not looking up from the report he was typing. "Oh, hello Solomon, what can I do for you? Ah, doppelgangers from another universe need to fill out Form 2814-GLNNH. No, it's not something you can usually ask for at the front desk. Don't worry, I'll have someone get some ready for you. How many do you need? Huh, that many? Wow, sounds like a busy day. You're welcome. Good bye."

…

My name is Taylor F. Hebert...

My name is Taylor K. Hebert...

My name is Taylor W. Hebert...

Ich heiße Schneidrin D. Hebert...

My name is Taylor P. Hebert...

My name is Taylor Y. Hebert...

Watashi wa Hebert Saihoko desu ...

My name is Taylor R. Hebert...

My name is Taylor 5 Hebert...

Ako si Taylor T. Hebert...

My name is 74`/|_0R |-|E8Er7...

My name is Taylor A. Herbert...

\- -.- -. .- - . .. ... - .- -.- .-.. - .-. -.-. ... . -... . .-. - ·-·-·- ·-·-·- ·-·-·-

01001101 01111001 00100000 01101110 01100001 01101101 01100101 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01010100 01100001 01111001 01101100 01101111 01110010 00100000 01000001 01001001 00100000 01001000 01100101 01100010 01100101 01110010 01110100 00101110 00101110 00101110

We're pretty sure you know the rest.

…

 _ **Super Taylor Taisen:**_ __ _ **Into the Taylor-verse**_

Starring Taylor Hebert, Taylor Hebert, Taylor Hebert, Taylor Hebert, Taylor Hebert,

Taylor Hebert, Taylor Hebert, Taylor Hebert, Taylor Hebert, Taylor Hebert,

Taylor Hebert, Taylor Hebert, Taylor Hebert, Taylor Hebert

featuring Taylor Anne Hebert

and Introducing Taylor Hebert as Foresight

Coming Soon To a Fanfic Near You.

….

Please review, C&C welcome.

Until next time, this is Shadow, signing off.


End file.
